We always knew that Google is making billions from its various arms — Search, Android, Adwords etc. What we didn’t know is just how much it’s making from its annoyingly popular video streaming service. Y’know, the one called YouTube.

In the year 2019, Google made more than $15 billion from YouTube ads. This is according to an annual report published by its parent company Alphabet. That makes up almost 10 percent of Alphabet’s total revenue and doesn’t include other sources of revenue from the video platform, including subscriptions. That’s only from ads. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So that’s what unskippable ads are for

Just to put this into perspective — in 2006 Google bought (ahem… acquired) YouTube for $1.65 billion. Just considering the period from 2017 to 2019, YouTube’s revenue nearly doubled from $8.1 billion to the most recent $15.1 billion. This finally gives us a clear view of YouTube’s continued success and market dominance.

Up until now, Google has declined to clarify YouTube’s revenue, which has been a source of much speculation. We definitely speculated.

Over and above ad revenue, YouTube is also capitalising on Premium subscribers (we’ve all had to deal with the neverending prompts to sub). The company now has more than 20 million subscribers to YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, and 2 million subscribers to YouTube TV. Overall, YouTube’s non-ads revenue, which includes subscriptions and commerce, amounts to $3 billion.

Sauce: Digital Trends