YouTube Music and YouTube Premium now have more than 150 million combined subscribers worldwide, and the company announced the figure alongside Alphabet’s third-quarter 2026 financial results. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai revealed the number during the earnings update. It is a jump of 25 million from the 125 million reported earlier this year.

The growth is hard to ignore because it arrived after a price increase. YouTube has raised subscription prices in several markets, and in the US an individual Premium plan now costs $15.99 a month, roughly Rs. 1,500. Users kept signing up or staying in the system anyway, and the headline count kept climbing.

There is a catch that changes how the number should be read. Both figures include people using free trials, so the 150 million does not represent paying subscribers alone. A trial user and a customer paying every month both count toward the total.

The company has not said how many subscribers use YouTube Music and how many pay for YouTube Premium, or which countries account for the largest share of its 150 million subscribers.

Growth that the numbers cannot explain yet

The latest figures do not show whether the price hikes affected sign-ups. They also do not show whether existing subscribers left after their bills went up. That gap is what makes the milestone difficult to interpret.

Two readings fit the same headline. In the first, demand is strong enough that people accept higher costs and keep the service. In the second, free trials and the combined count of two products are doing most of the work, and the paying base is far smaller than 150 million. The disclosed data cannot separate those stories.

Combining YouTube Music and YouTube Premium into one number also limits what outsiders can measure. Music and Premium serve overlapping audiences, but they are not the same product. Without a split, there is no way to tell which service is driving the growth or whether one is carrying the other.

Subscriptions are only one engine

Subscriptions are only part of YouTube’s business. Advertising still brings in billions of dollars every quarter. YouTube earned $11.21 billion, roughly Rs. 1,06,000 crore, from ads in the third quarter of 2026. That was up 9.2 percent from a year earlier, according to reported figures.

The shift in where people watch matters here. More than a third of YouTube’s ad revenue now comes from people watching on connected televisions. The living room has become one of the platform’s biggest money-makers, and it is a screen where viewers tend to stay put for longer sessions.

The source figures do not connect TV viewing to subscription growth. Any link between the two remains unconfirmed. Still, a company earning this much from the largest screen in the house is in a stronger position to test higher prices than one that depends on phones alone.

Cheaper options and what is coming next

For people who find full Premium too expensive, YouTube Premium Lite offers a cheaper plan with fewer ads. The trade-off is that it does not include the full range of music features. That makes it a clear middle option for viewers who want ad relief without paying for everything.

YouTube is also reportedly planning to bring Peacock Premium to its paid subscribers next year, and audiobooks could follow. These plans are described as reported rather than confirmed in the earnings figures. If they arrive, they would widen what a YouTube subscription includes and give the company more reasons to keep prices high.

The pattern is clear even if the details are not. YouTube is adding value to its paid tiers while raising what it charges. Whether that formula holds depends on how many of the 150 million people eventually turn trials into paid accounts.

The creator and upload side of the platform

YouTube sees more than 20 million videos uploaded every day, Google executive Philipp Schindler said. That volume is the supply side of the platform. Every upload needs viewers, and every viewer represents a possible ad impression or a possible subscription.

The company has also been adding AI-powered editing features to YouTube Studio. These tools are aimed at creators, the people who produce that upload volume. Features for creators and features for paying users are part of the same strategy: keep the supply of content growing and keep the audience engaged enough to pay for it.

The questions that matter next

The 150 million figure is big, but the questions attached to it are bigger. Paying users, a clear split between YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, and a country-by-country breakdown would turn a headline milestone into a usable picture of the subscription business.

Until those numbers arrive, 150 million is a count of people with access to paid products, not a count of people who are definitely paying. That distinction is the story underneath the milestone. The price went up, the number went up, and the company has not yet shown how much of that growth is real money.