YouTube ad sales top $11 billion as Alphabet beats forecasts
Alphabet said YouTube ad revenue rose 13% in the second quarter, helping lift total revenue to $119.8 billion.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
2 min read
YouTube’s advertising engine cleared $11 billion in the second quarter, giving Alphabet another bright spot as the Google parent beat Wall Street expectations.
Alphabet reported YouTube ad revenue of $11.055 billion for the quarter, up 13% from the same period a year earlier. The company’s overall revenue climbed 24% to $119.8 billion, while earnings per share nearly quadrupled to $9.11, according to its quarterly results.
Both the revenue and earnings figures came in above Wall Street expectations, Deadline reported.
The YouTube number underlined how important the video platform remains inside Alphabet’s broader business. Its double-digit advertising growth came as the service keeps pushing beyond creator videos and further into mainstream entertainment and sports.
Deadline reported that YouTube has landed rights to the Academy Awards and NFL football games, part of its effort to expand its role in traditional entertainment while still drawing on its large library of creator-made programming.
Pichai points to YouTube’s reach
Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai singled out YouTube in the company’s earnings release, presenting the platform as a major destination for people following big events.
“Month over month, people turn to YouTube for major world events, with over 1.7 billion unique viewers watching World Cup-related videos during the FIFA World Cup,” Pichai wrote in the release.
The comment put YouTube’s scale at the center of Alphabet’s pitch to investors, especially as video viewing, live events and sports rights continue to shape competition among tech companies, streamers and media firms.
AI questions still hang over big tech
The earnings arrived after debate on Wall Street over Alphabet and the other so-called “magnificent seven” tech companies: Nvidia, Apple, Amazon, Meta, Tesla and Microsoft, according to Deadline.
Some Wall Street investors have been watching a recent split between those large tech stocks and semiconductor shares. Deadline reported that chipmakers have fallen recently despite their central role in the artificial intelligence boom.
Alphabet has also been under scrutiny over AI. Deadline reported that Google was initially seen as lagging in the sector but has moved ahead over recent quarters. The company still faces questions about its plans for Gemini and other tools.
For the quarter, though, Alphabet’s results showed advertising still doing plenty of heavy lifting. YouTube’s $11.055 billion in ad sales gave the company another fast-growing revenue stream alongside its broader Google business.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.