YouTube May Now Be Worth $550 Billion, Revenue Could Surpass Disney
By now everyone in Hollywood knows YouTube is a dominant player in the video ecosystem, but a prominent Wall Street analyst argues that YouTube still has a long period of growth ahead of it.
MoffettNathanson’s Michael Nathanson writes in a March 31 note that YouTube should be officially crowned the “new king of all media,” with engagement topping all other media companies in February’s Nielsen Gauge report, and with 2024 revenue of $54.2 billion, second only to Disney. And he predicts that YouTube will surpass Disney this year.
If YouTube was a standalone business, public comps suggest the business would be worth $475 billion to $550 billion, or about 30 percent of Alphabet’s current valuation, Nathanson wrote. “YouTube has the potential to become the central aggregator for all things professional video, positioning itself to capture a share of the $85 billion consumer Pay TV market and the ~$30 billion streaming ex. Netflix market in the U.S.”
At a moment when many media companies are struggling to pivot their streaming services to profitability, YouTube is firing on all cylinders in three buckets of revenue: Advertising, where 2024 revenue alone topped $36 billion; Subscriptions, where YouTube Premium and YouTube Music join products like YouTube Primetime Channels and NFL Sunday Ticket in driving direct subscriber growth; and YouTube TV, where the company is pacing to become one of the largest pay-TV providers in the U.S. (it currently has over 8 million subscribers).
“Looking ahead, we expect subscription revenue growth to continue to outpace advertising, driven primarily by subscriber additions,” Nathanson writes. “However, with no further price increases factored into our model, we anticipate a gradual slowdown in subscription growth as net additions moderate, particularly for YouTube TV. As a result, we forecast YouTube’s total revenue growth to settle in the low- to mid-double-digit range from 2025 through 2027. This trajectory – and the potential to inflect the trend upward – underscores why we explore YouTube’s monetization dynamics and the untapped opportunities that lie ahead in the sections below. In our view, the opportunity is ripe for the taking.”
Indeed, the analyst argues that perhaps YouTube’s most fruitful opportunity is “to become the home for all things video.” Its dominance in engagement and monetization could make it a compelling partner for other entertainment offerings, and make it a major contender among the companies seeking to create the new pay-TV bundle.
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