YouTube’s revenue growth slowed dramatically during Q2, but the video giant’s performance still stood out as a bright spot after Alphabet, the parent company of YouTube and Google, reported its first quarter of declining revenue growth on Thursday.
For the second quarter, YouTube’s sales increased 5.8% year-over-year to $3.8 billion. The growth was paltry in comparison to YouTube’s performance last quarter, when its revenue jumped 33% to about $4 billion. But 5.8% growth still looked good relative to Google’s overall business, which reported sales decreased 2% from the same time last year to $38.80 billion. This marked the first time since Google went public in 2004 that quarterly sales fell.
Analysts had anticipated Google’s ad business would be hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, though, with the company projected to post sales of $37.4 billion on Thursday. Google’s share price was flat in after-hours trading, after closing Thursday up 1% to $1,538.37 per share. The company’s revenue from “Search and Other,” typically its strongest sector, noticeably declined 9.8% from this time last year to $21.3 billion.
During Alphabet’s earnings call, CFO Ruth Porat said it had seen a “modest” uptick in ad sales in July, but that it would be “premature to say we’re out of the woods.”
Alphabet’s Q2 report came out a day after CEO Sundar Pichai — along with the chief executives of Apple, Amazon and Facebook — virtually testified before Congress. The hearing, which aimed to touch on potential antitrust practices used by the four tech giants, often veered into different topics, including tech censorship, Google’s ties to China, and even questions about Gmail’s spam email settings. You can read a recap of the day by going here.
Leave a Reply