YouTube brought in $4.04 billion during Q1, marking an increase of 33% from the year prior, according to parent company Alphabet, which reported its first-quarter earnings on Tuesday afternoon.
Overall, YouTube accounted for nearly 10% of Alphabet’s $41.16 billion in Q1 sales. (Alphabet is also the parent company of Google.) YouTube’s $4.04 billion in Q1 sales falls a bit short of where it was at during the last quarter of 2019, when it reported $4.72 billion in revenue.
The internet’s dominant video site brought in more than $15 billion in revenue last year, Alphabet reported in early February — marking the first time the tech giant ever shared YouTube’s performance. YouTube’s quarterly sales do not include revenue from YouTube TV, its $50 per month live TV streaming service.
Alphabet’s stock price increased 3.4% in early after-hours trading, after the company topped analyst estimates of $40.29 billion in Q1 revenue. Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat warned on Tuesday the company’s ad revenue was impacted in March by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Performance was strong during the first two months of the quarter, but then in March we experienced a significant slowdown in ad revenues,” Porat said. “We are sharpening our focus on executing more efficiently, while continuing to invest in our long-term opportunities.”
Since acquiring YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, Google had, until earlier this year, closely guarded how much the site contributed to its massive ad business. On its own, YouTube’s 2019 ad revenue of $15.15 billion came in about $5 billion shy of what Netflix brought in last year.