Details of YouTube’s ad revenue has been published for the first time by Google’s parent company Alphabet.
According to its annual earnings report, the online video platform pulled in $15bn in advertising revenue over the course of 2019 in addition to reaching 20 million paid subscribers through access to YouTube Premium and Music Premium.
YouTube’s ad revenue contributed to around 10% to all Google revenue last year.
Alphabet overall recorded revenues of $46bn over Q4 2019, a rise of 17% year-on-year — the slowest rate in more than two years.
Alphabet also earned $2.6bn in cloud revenue for the most recent quarter, rising more than 50% year-on-year but lower compared to almost $10bn at Amazon.
“Since its acquisition in 2006, this platform has taken the social media space, and world, by storm, and content creators and brands alike are becoming more and more attracted to YouTube as a leading platform, making these statistics hardly surprising,” said Ben Jeffries, CEO and co-founder at Influencer in a LinkedIn post.
“This great success acts as a clear indicator of YouTube’s increasing popularity, and highlights the effectiveness of video content,” he continued.
Jeffries advised brands to recognise the power of YouTube as a content platform in order to stay ahead of the game.
“In light of these stats, I predict that YouTube will continue to build a larger presence in the social media field, but for marketers to take advantage of the growth in market share, they need to quickly learn the importance of creating videos that their customer can connect with,” Jeffries concluded.