The seemingly unstoppable juggernaut that is YouTube charged on in the second quarter, expanding by another 13% YoY to reach $9.8 billion in ad sales. The performance beat equity analysts’ consensus forecast of around $9.6 billion.
The April through June period also marked the ninth consecutive quarter that the Alphabet video unit achieved double-digit-percentage ad-revenue growth.
It was a solid quarter overall for parent company Alphabet, with emerging AI products driving 14% overall revenue growth to $96.428 billion, and 19% net income expanding to $28.2 billion.
Meanwhile, company executives cited now ubiquitous Nielsen numbers that show YouTube’s connected TV business accounting for a record-breaking 12.8% of all U.S. TV viewing in June.
“A generation that grew up on YouTube is now watching its favorite creators in the living room,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts during Wednesday’s earnings call.
Pichai specifically called out YouTube’s free live stream of an NFL game on Sept. 5, which pits the San Diego Chargers against the Kansas City Chiefs in a contest played in São Paulo, Brazil.
YouTube has led the U.S. in streaming watch time for more than two years, Alphabet pointed out, with CTV viewing now exceeding mobile. But AI is now driving YouTube growth, too, with generative AI model Veo being increasingly used by creators to produce content for YouTube Shorts.
According to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, YouTube Shorts is now generating 2 million views per day. Shorts, he said, garnered as much viewing in the U.S. as traditional YouTube in Q2, he added.
YouTube also experienced another “strong” quarter in its subscriptions business (Pichai’s words), which includes virtual pay TV service YouTube TV, YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. Alphabet rarely breaks out performance metrics for YouTube’s subscription business.
Analyst Craig Moffett predicted in April that YouTube’s combined ad and subscription revenue, which he said tallied $54.2 billion in 2024, will surpass Disney’s total sales this year, making YouTube the biggest media company in the world.
Here’s Alphabet’s Q2 earnings release.
“We had a standout quarter, with robust growth across the company,” Pichai said. “We continue to see strong performance in YouTube as well as subscriptions offerings.”