Even as linear TV continues to struggle, the video advertising market on YouTube continues to grow.
The Google-owned video platform on Thursday reported advertising revenue of $8.1 billion in Q1 2024, up more than 20% from $6.7 billion in the Q1 quarter a year ago. Wall Street estimates were for YouTube ad revenue of $7.7 billion.
Q1 is often a soft one for advertising, in Q4 (which is usually the best quarter for ads), YouTube had ad revenue of $9.2 billion. Both quarters were up by more than $1.2 billion from a year ago.
During the company’s earnings call, CEO Sundar Pichai noted that subscriptions are “increasingly important for YouTube,” noting that YouTube Premium and Music now have more than 100 million subscribers, with YouTube TV topping 8 million subscribers.
“In the first quarter [YouTube in the] living room benefited from a combination of strong watchtime growth, innovation in the user and advertiser experience, and a shift in brand advertising budgets from linear TV to YouTube,” Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler added. “Wiewers are watching YouTube because they expect to access everything in one place across screens and formats, their favorite creators, live sports, breaking news, educational content, movies, music and more. And advertisers continue to lean in to find audiences they can’t find elsewhere.”
YouTube is growing at a double digit pace in a quarter when linear TV companies are reporting continued year-over-year declines in their ad revenue, a sign of the shifting dynamics of video advertising.
On the subscriptions front, the “Google subscriptions, platforms, and devices” line item grew to $8.7 billion in the quarter, with executives citing YouTube as a big reason. That being said, the cost o revenues also rose by 10% to $20.7 billion, “with the increase driven primarily by content acquisition costs associated with YouTube,” CFO Ruth Porat said.
Subscription revenues were impacted negatively in Q1 compared to Q4, owing to the timing of NFL Sunday Ticket games.
On the call, Schindler was asked about YouTube’s interest in more sports rights, like the NBA.
“We’ve had long standing and significant partnerships with the most popular sports leagues here in the U.S. around the globe,” he said. “Obviously these partnerships in combination with a very vast audience of sports fans drives investment and subscription experiences across many offerings, NFL Sunday Ticket, YouTube TV, YouTube primetime channels, and so on. But there’s nothing that we have to announce at the moment. We’re obviously always looking at where we can create more value for our users, for our advertisers, for creators.”
YouTube parent company Alphabet reported revenue of $80.5 billion, and net income of more than $23.6 billion. The bulk of that revenue is still from Google search.
Alphabet also initiated a dividend, giving shareholders $0.20 payable on June 17.
More to come.
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