Perhaps disabusing the video business of the notion that sustained double-digit growth is merely a matter of transitioning models from subscriber to advertising focus, YouTube just reported its slowest quarterly revenue growth in more than two years.
Alphabet said during its second quarter earnings report Tuesday that YouTube generated $7.34 billion from April - June, up 4.8% year over year. The expansion missed equity investor forecasts of around $7.49 billion.
Consider that in the second quarter of 2021, Alphabet reported 84% revenue growth for YouTube.
"The 2022 revenue growth rates are presented against particularly tough comps as we lapped the recovery in the second quarter of 2021 from the impact of the pandemic in early 2020," Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat told equity analyst during Tuesday's earnings report. "Going forward, the very strong revenue performance last year continues to create tough comps that will weigh on year-on-year growth rates of advertising revenues for the remainder of the year. In YouTube and Network, the pullbacks in spend by some advertisers in the second quarter reflects uncertainty about a number of factors that are challenging to disaggregate.
Notably, YouTube generated ad-sales expansion of only 5.8% in the second quarter of 2020 amid the sudden onset of COVID-19.
