YouTube's ad sales for Q3 FY23 surged by 12.5%, reaching nearly $8 billion

Total ad revenue for Alphabet, parent company of Google, grew by 9.5% to $59.6 billion.

For the quarter ending on September 30, 2023, tech giant Alphabet, parent company of Google, reported a total ad revenue of $59.6 billion. An ad revenue of about $44 billion was brought in by Google's search business, marking an increase of 11.3 %.

YouTube generated $7.95 billion in ad revenue for Q3 2023, a 12.5% increase from the previous year. The company attributed the positive results to brand and direct-response advertising. With this, the total ad revenue for the company grew by 9.5%. This outcome contrasts with YouTube's performance in the previous year, where ad revenue had decreased by 1.9% from 2021.

During an investor call, Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google, reported that daily views for short-form video platform YouTube Shorts have increased to 70 billion per day, up from 50 billion earlier this year. He added that the company plans to introduce enhancements for Shorts, including AI-powered editing tools among other features.

“I’m pleased with our financial results and our product momentum this quarter, with AI driven innovations across Search, YouTube, Cloud, our Pixel devices and more. We’re continuing to focus on making AI more helpful for everyone; there’s exciting progress and lots more to come," he said in a statement.

Google registered a total profit of $19.7 billion for the third quarter of 2023. This marks a 46% increase from the Q3 earnings of 2022. The company's total revenue reached $76.7 billion, up by 11%.

The company's cloud computing services, Google Cloud, also saw a profitability due to increased business in AI training tools, marking a growth of 22% year over year in revenue.

However, Google Cloud's Q3 revenue of $8.41 billion fell short of investor expectations, missing the projected $8.64 billion. Further, Alphabet is currently facing a significant antitrust trial, alleging monopolistic practices in search dominance.

Thus, despite YouTube's strong performance, Alphabet's shares declined over 6% in after-hours trading.