YouTube reported a 15.5% year-over-year increase in quarterly ad revenue in the fourth quarter, reaching $9.2 billion, just 13 days after handing out pink slips to 100 workers.
Notably, YouTube ad sales declined 8% in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Amid the broader corporate parent Alphabet's Q4/full-2023 earnings, we, as is typical, didn't learn much about Google's media business.
For whatever it means, the company said it was "pleased" with the first-year performance of NFL Sunday Ticket, which it's paying around $2 billion a season to license.
It didn't disclose subscription numbers for its virtual pay TV service, YouTube TV. And no insight was given into uptake for the company's TVOS platform, Google TV.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai did say during the earnings call that the company's combined services portfolio, which includes YouTube TV, YouTube Music and Google One cloud storage, has surpassed 15 million subscribers.
Overall, the internet company reported Q4 revenue of $86.31 billion, up 13.5% year over year.
“We are pleased with the ongoing strength in Search and the growing contribution from YouTube and Cloud," said Pichai, in statement. "Each of these is already benefiting from our AI investments and innovation. As we enter the Gemini era, the best is yet to come.”
