YouTube ad revenue up 83% as Google achieves record quarter

Google recorded a record of US$61.6 billion in revenue during Q2 2021, parent company Alphabet has announced. 

A significant factor behind the record quarter for the company was a total of US$7.0 billion in YouTube advertising revenue. This exceeded Wall Street estimates of US$6.37 billion, and was up 83% year-over-year. 

Announcing the results, chief business officer Phillipp Schindler praised the growth of connected TV as “the fastest growing consumer surface that we have,” adding that over 120 million people watch YouTube on their TVs each month. 

The company also touted the success of its new TikTok competitor YouTube Shorts. The format, Google said, has surpassed 15 billion daily views up from 6.5 billion in March.

Overall, total Google ad revenue increased to US$50.44 billion, up 69% from the year-ago quarter.

Google’s cloud business brought in US$4.63 billion, with operating losses of US$591 million – an improvement from US$1.43 billion year-over-year.