YouTube Earned More Than $15 Billion in Ad Revenue in 2019, Up 36% From 2018

For the first time ever on Monday, Google shared how much money YouTube brings in. YouTube generated $4.72 billion in fourth-quarter ad revenue, according to Google’s Q4 earnings report released on Monday afternoon, and it’s annual ad sales increased nearly 36% year-over-year to $15.15 billion. These figures do not include subscriptions to YouTube TV, the company’s $50 per month live-TV service. Overall, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, reported revenue of $162 billion for all of 2019. The tech giant reported revenue of $46.1 billion for the holiday quarter, coming in about $900 million shy of analyst estimates. Google’s stock price slid about 4% in after-hours trading to $1,422 per share. Since acquiring YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, Google has closely guarded how much the internet’s biggest video site contributes to its massive ad business. On its own, YouTube’s annual ad revenue of $15.15 billion comes in about $5 billion shy of what Netflix brought in last year. The fourth quarter coincided with Google CEO Sundar Pichai taking over as the boss of Alphabet in December. The company’s stock price, heading into Monday afternoon, had been on a bit of a run in the last three months, with Alphabet recently joining Amazon, Apple and Microsoft as the only companies to cross the $1 trillion valuation threshold.