YOUTUBE Q1 revenue growth stalls, comes in at $6.9 Billion

That’s +14% from Q1 2021… but the projection was for $7.4 Billion. And it was growing at a 42% rate a year ago.

The $6.9 Billion Q1 total is also down from $8.6 Billion in Q4, where YT beat NETFLIX in revenue for the first quarter ever.

Not so much this time - NETFLIX beat them by $1 Billion in Q1 #humblebrag.

YT cited a decrease in direct-response advertising, and an advertiser spend pullback in EUROPE due to the war in UKRAINE as causes here for the Q1 miss.

No direct mention of a TIKTOK problem… despite probably everyone else feeling otherwise. But despite YT’s boast of 30 Billion Shorts views a day, 4X more than last year (admittedly when Shorts was in its relative infancy) - it looks like that growth is not coming with a lot of Ad $$ attached.

And some other stats:

• YT reached 135 million people on Connected TVs in Dec globally

• YT has 2 Billion logged-in viewers watch something every month

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TAKEAWAY:

While YT previously was emphasizing their Connected TV viewing, it looks like its mobile-first primacy is still alive and well… making TIKTOK a real and rising competitor that looks to be cutting into it’s previous gangbuster revenue growth.

YT also looks to have been a beneficiary of great economic expansion in 2021 and the accompanying Marketing spends by brands that came with it.

2022 looks to be different story so far, with rising interest rates ahead and other… not great economic signs in the mix, and if UKRAINE effects were a drag on Revenue in Q1, that is certainly a situation that will persist well into the year. GOOGLE did not provide explicit guidance ahead for Q2.

ALSO: Zero mention of YOUTUBE TV at all, or a YOUTUBE MUSIC info breakout. Again.

AND: Over at parent company GOOGLE

Yeah they made almost $17 Billion in profit in 3 months. Which was actually considered not great. Overall Revenue was $68 Billion, 57% is from GOOGLE Search revenue alone.

But given the miss on projections, the stock was trading down about 3% last night, and #FunFact1 - all stock gains over the past 12 months have basically been erased. 🥸

And #FunFact2 - GOOGLE literally has a line called “Other Bets” on their financial reporting. Sadly they would have done better at Belmont (they lost $1.1 Billion on said “bets” in Q1). 🐎

#FunFact3 - GOOG stock is back where it was a year ago, all 2021 gains have been wiped out.