YouTube continues to pen a success story for Google and according to Sundar Pichai, it has surpassed 50 million music and premium subscribers, including those in trial, and short-video making app YouTube Shorts (launched first in India last year) continues to see higher adoption rates.
“In the past year, the average number of daily first-time creators more than doubled. There’s a lot more to come, including tapping into commerce on YouTube,” Alphabet and Google CEO Pichai said during the company’s earnings call late on Tuesday.
“From shoppable live stream experiments with retailers like Sephora, Target and Walmart, to pilots that view us by directly from their favourite creators videos, we’re still in the early innings of what’s possible,” he added.
In the July-September quarter, YouTube recorded advertising revenues of $7.2 billion — up 43 per cent due to strength in both direct response and brand advertising.
Over 2 million creators are now making money and building their businesses on YouTube via YouTube partner programme with 10 different ways to monetise — their content from Super Chat to BrandConnect.
Google said that YouTube’s reach is becoming increasingly incremental to TV.
“Connected TV is driving part of this growth. It’s our fastest-growing screen. Advertisers can now drive conversions on the big screen, which brings me to brands of all sizes continue to buy YouTube at both ends of the funnel to create future demand while they convert existing demand,” said Philipp Schindler, Senior Vice President/Chief Business Officer.
For Pichai, YouTube is unique in the sense that it’s a true video — native video first product from day one.
“Content responsibility has been our most important focus for the past many years. And beyond that, I think we worked hard to make sure both creators can do well, and it’s a great platform for advertisers. We’ve had strengthened brand. We’ve built on it with robust momentum in direct response,” Pichai said.
