Alphabet, Google’s parent firm, dropped its latest earnings report Tuesday night. And it was bonkers.
Per The Verge, Alphabet’s revenue in 2021 hit a record $257B, a gain of 41% YoY. Somewhat absurdly for its size, this is the company’s fastest annual growth since 2007.
The YouTube juggernaut
Google acquired YouTube for $1.65B in 2006, but didn’t break out earnings for the streaming service until 2020.
For the latest quarter, YouTube ads brought in $8.6B. Here’s the wild part: That’s an annualized run rate of $34B, which outpaced Netflix — a $30B run rate — for the 1st time.
With a mostly ad-based business, YouTube is usually left out of the streaming subscription wars conversation…
… but it’s clearly the video leader
As one point of comparison, a study of Android users found that in 2020 the average monthly time spent on YouTube was 23 hours (vs. ~6 hours for Netflix).
Meanwhile, YouTube itself has more active users (2.3B) than any social site other than Zuck Daddy’s Facebook (2.7B).
And while we’re at it, here’s another wild stat: YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine in the world (you can guess the first).
Alphabet’s stock jumped 9%+…
… on the strength of the earnings and news that it’ll do a 20-1 stock split (which goes into effect in July).
If the split happened today, $GOOGL would be ~$148 a share vs. ~$2,960 a share. Lower dollar values after a share split have worked as an enticement for retail investors, who bid up Apple and Tesla following their respective splits.
Split or no split, Google — and YouTube — will keep being bonkers businesses.
