YouTube revenue in the billions, accounts for less than 10 percent of Google's income

[Shawn Knight]

YouTube is by far the most popular user-generated video site on the web but according to a new report, the Google-owned property isn't making near as much money as some analysts had hoped for.

Two anonymous sources recently told The Information that YouTube brought in $3.5 billion in advertising revenue last year. After paying content partners, that figure dropped to just $1.5 billion. While those are solid numbers by some standards and YouTube is profitable, it represents just a tiny amount of Google's overall income.

If the figure is accurate, it would account for just seven percent of the $58 billion the search giant brought in 2013.

YouTube revenue is an area that Google is certainly interested in improving as evident by the appointment of former AdWords and AdSense boss Susan Wojcicki to CEO a few months ago. Part of her duties will no doubt be to improve the site's revenue moving forward.

Another area that YouTube is reportedly focusing on is monthly video viewing hours. Before former YouTube CEO Salar Kamangar departed, he set a goal of growing this metric from a base of 100 million monthly video viewing hours in 2012 to 1 billion in 2016. At present, the site averages around 300 million monthly viewing hours.

There's still a lot of work left if the company wants to reach the goal by its target date but with more and more people getting online each day, it certainly seems plausible.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/57336-youtube-revenue-in-the-billions-accounts-for-less-than-10-percent-of-googles-income.html

 

[davislane1]

Not bad for a free video streaming site. I take it Ad Block is having a tough time fighting Google/YT algos.

 

[Kibaruk]

As long as they don't put more comercials between videos...

 

[Darkshadoe]

Not bad for a free video streaming site. I take it Ad Block is having a tough time fighting Google/YT algos.

AdBlock works fine on You Tube. They have now taken to putting these little sliding ads in the video area that it wont block, but they aren't that obtrusive.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Not bad for a free video streaming site. I take it Ad Block is having a tough time fighting Google/YT algos.

Haha xD.

Crazy how billions of dollars only accounts for 10% of googles profits... Shows how much money they make -_- and it's kind of scary.

 

[tomkaten]

It's funny how 1.5 billion is "cheap change", yeah. I don't think any company in my country is that profitable. As long as it's bringing in money, it's all good though. No reason to shut it down anytime soon.

 

[mailpup]

Don't confuse a company's revenue with their profits. Those are two different things. People sometimes seem to use them interchangeably but they shouldn't.

@tomkaten, I think the expression you want is "chump change."

 

[tomkaten]

Mailpup, true... I think I was aiming for "small change" though )

 

[gobbybobby]

As long as they don't put more comercials between videos...

Its a common misconception but its not Google that put adverse in middle of YouTube videos its the uploaders themselves you can have an advert evert 8 mins and you as the uploder have to type the timestamps you want ads placed in.