YouTube generated $11.06 billion from ad sales in the second quarter of 2026. That was 12.6 percent more than in the same period last year and around $260 million above the figure expected by Wall Street analysts.
The reported result covers advertising only. Revenue from subscriptions to services such as YouTube Premium, YouTube Music and YouTube TV is not included in this amount, although the platform’s total annual revenue had already exceeded $60 billion in 2025.
At the level of parent company Alphabet, total quarterly revenue reached $119.8 billion, representing growth of 24 percent. Advertising generated $81.63 billion for the company, or 14.4 percent more than a year earlier. The largest share of that amount still comes from Google Search, whose revenue rose 17 percent to $63.27 billion.
Alongside the financial results came a figure showing how much a global sporting event can expand a platform’s audience. More than 1.7 billion unique viewers worldwide watched video content related to the 2026 World Cup, said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet.
That audience was not generated entirely within the second quarter. The World Cup began on June 11 and ended on July 19, but its first several weeks were included in the quarterly results. The content was not limited to broadcasts and official match footage. Creator commentary, analysis, short clips and reactions extended the life of the tournament on the platform, while a selected group of creators generated 2.5 billion views.
YouTube also began recording more significant use of the Ask YouTube feature during the same period. The tool, powered by Gemini models, allows users to ask questions about the video they are watching, receive a summary of its content and immediately jump to a specific moment. More than 140 million people used the feature on the Watch page during June.
The World Cup alone is therefore not enough to explain the growth in advertising revenue, particularly because much of the tournament took place across the boundary between two quarters. Its figures nevertheless show the space the platform can offer advertisers when attention around a single event is distributed between official channels, creators and content that continues to be watched after the matches have ended.
The figure of $11.06 billion does not include any subscriptions. Rather than presenting a complete picture of YouTube’s business, the figure shows how large its advertising segment alone has become.
