20% More Creators Earning Over 7 Figures: YouTube India MD To NDTV

The 2025 India impact report for YouTube has been released, revealing that the platform contributed Rs 18,000 crore to the country's economy and supported nearly a million full-time equivalent jobs.

Speaking exclusively to NDTV's Shiv Aroor on Tuesday, YouTube India Managing Director Gunjan Soni said that while these numbers are staggering, the story does not end there, because there are many "ancillary benefits" as well. Soni highlighted stories of creators starting out from one room and going on to employ 35 people within four years, showing that content creation on the platform is becoming a career.

"When you look behind the numbers, what gets us even more excited is the economic job creation impact for the youth. So nearly a million full-time equivalent jobs and then these creators supported another three lakh people on top of this (as apprentices), and this is all measurable data," the YouTube India head said.

Soni emphasised that while people used to think of creators as people carrying a selfie stick or shooting on a webcam and making content, many have now become CEOs of media enterprises in their own right.

"I'll take a very simple example, pun not intended, of a channel called 'Simple Ghar'. They started out with the vision, back in 2022, to really help households make better purchase decisions. They ended up using a converted room with a small camera, which was the norm of how people got started out. Today they employ 35 people and create content in more than seven languages. And this is not a one-off case, this is becoming the norm, and I think that is the reason behind those big numbers that we are starting to see happen in the economy," she said.

The report states that 73% of creators say what they are doing on YouTube is their primary source of income, and Soni emphasised that the platform takes this very seriously.

"We look at how we can continue to invest in nurturing this ecosystem, both in supporting creation but also in supporting monetisation avenues for them so that this can actually become an even bigger phenomenon," she said.

Growth For Creators

The MD said she was surprised that despite it being such a big ecosystem, about 2 lakh new channels were monetised for the first time last year.

"Which means that the funnel is still really large and people are finding new and innovative ways to participate in this creative economy. What was less surprising, but definitely worth mentioning, is what is happening at the top of the creation ladder as well. Creators earning seven figures, which is a very coveted number in the Indian ecosystem and even in traditional jobs, expanded 20% year on year," she highlighted.