YouTube Revenue Hits $10 Billion

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Quick Read

  • YouTube is a major contributor to Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) revenue.

  • It is also the largest video platform in the United States and profitable.

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YouTube Revenue Hits $10 Billion

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In the most recent quarter, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL | GOOGL Price Prediction) revenue rose 12% year over year to $96.5 billion. YouTube grew faster, up 14% to $10.5 billion.

YouTube’s growth has exploded. It has 211 million monthly users. That is higher than second place Facebook at 185 million. It is also first among all streaming video platforms in the United States with 8.6% of all time spent with video. Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) was second at 7.9%.

YouTube, which may still be viewed as a destination for short, cute videos, has become a powerhouse. According to SteamTVInsider, “Since YouTube delivers 10% of TV viewing, the industry would earn $6 billion more in ad revenue if viewers still spent that time with traditional TV.” That means a total of over $50 billion in video advertising is still at risk as YouTube grows.

YouTube also has monster subscriber numbers. It has 100 million subscribers to YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. These subscribers are spread across 100 countries. Like Netflix, YouTube has exclusive content. It charges subscribers as much as $23 a month.

Almost every story about streaming video is dominated by Netflix, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime Video, and half a dozen streaming services from legacy media companies. Some of the legacy media streaming services do not make money.

Google, as it was known then, bought YouTube for $1.65 billion on November 13, 2006. It was a fantastic deal for Google.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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