YouTube made about $8.1 billion from advertisements in the first quarter of 2024. The company revealed this amount during Alphabet’s initial earnings call of the year.
This amount represents a more than 20% increase in ad revenue compared to 2023. During the first quarter of 2023, ad revenue for YouTube was reported to be approximately $6.7 billion. This also exceeded the predictions from Wall Street, which estimated ad revenue for the division to be $7.7 billion. The actual ad revenue numbers were 5% higher than the prediction. YouTube’s advertising business in Q1 of 2024 continued to see strong spending trends from APAC-based retailers, which is consistent with a trend that began in the second quarter of 2023.
The creation of content on YouTube has also increased. “In 2023, more people created content on YouTube than ever before,” stated Phillip Schindler, senior vice president and chief business officer for Google, during Alphabet’s earnings call.
Furthermore, the number of channels uploading YouTube Shorts grew by 50% compared to the previous year, and the company recently reached over 3 million channels. Its YouTube Partner Program has also paid out more than any other creator monetization platform. According to Schindler, in the past three years, the platform has paid out over $70 billion to creators, artists, and media companies.
YouTube Shorts has experienced significant growth recently. In the last 12 months in the United States, the monetization rate of Shorts relative to in-stream viewing doubled, “including a 10-point sequential improvement in the first quarter alone.” The feature is now also ad-supported on its mobile, table, living room, and desktop versions.
Schindler mentioned that Shorts have served as a “long-term bet” to help YouTube meet the demand for short-form video content from creators and viewers.
“We’re obviously very happy with our progress. The way to think about it is advertisers really only spend with us when they see a positive ROI. So you can assume that this wouldn’t be happening unless it were to work for advertisers in the short term and also in the long term,” Schindler said.
Regarding subscriptions, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat noted that the company continues to experience “significant growth in our subscriptions business, which drives the majority of revenue growth in this line.” However, the company did witness a decline in subscription revenue growth during the first quarter of 2024 compared to the last quarter of 2023, primarily due to YouTube only having one week of its NFL Sunday Ticket subscription this quarter compared to 14 weeks last quarter.
In terms of its sports offerings, the company highlighted its ongoing investment in partnerships with “the most popular sports league here in the U.S. and around the globe.” However, YouTube currently has no news to share about expanding its live sports offerings.
