We finally know how much Google is making from ads on YouTube. For the first time, Alphabet broke out YouTube advertising revenues and that gives us a look at just how important the video site is to the company.
In 2019, YouTube ad revenues were $15.15 billion, which represents 86 percent growth since 2017. By contrast, the main Google search business grew by 40 percent to $98.1 billion over the last two years. Google disclosed the numbers, along with revenue for its growing cloud business, for the first time ahead of Alphabet’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
“I’m really pleased with our continued progress in Search and in building two of our newer growth areas YouTube, already at $15 billion in annual ad revenue, and Cloud, which is now on a $10 billion revenue run rate,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement.
Alphabet earnings are live and Google is disclosing YouTube ad revenue for the first time: just over $15 billion for 2019 $GOOG https://t.co/0aAYzVX7xI
— Karissa Bell (@karissabe) February 3, 2020
Alphabet’s “other revenue” category is another one we’re always interested in, because it’s the only way we can really get an idea of how projects like Google’s hardware division are doing. This quarter, other revenues totaled $5.3 billion, up 10 percent over the previous year something that could suggest the Pixel 4 launch was a little more successful than the Pixel 3 launch in 2018. But this category also includes things like the Play Store and “YouTube non-advertising revenues” which are probably things like the YouTube Premium subscription service, so we can’t say for sure how much of this is due to hardware. Regardless, the “other revenue” category has grown 56 percent over the last two years so like YouTube, it’s outperforming Google’s core search ad business.
Up until now, Google has declined to break out YouTube’s revenue, which has been a source of much speculation.
