The third quarter of 2023 produced some positive results for YouTube and its parent company. During its trimonthly call with shareholders, Alphabet reported $76.69 million in quarterly revenue and a net income of $19.69 billion over the same period.
Both of those numbers outdid Wall Street expectations. The overall revenue figure represented an 11% year-over-year increase. Alphabet doesn’t break out all of YouTube’s revenue during its earnings call, but the video platform’s ad business experienced its own double-digit year-over-year uptick. According to Alphabet, YouTube pulled in $7.95 billion of quarterly ad revenue, which beat projections and exceeded YouTube’s Q3 2022 ad revenue by 12.5%.
Since Alphabet doesn’t include YouTube’s subscription revenue in its earning reports, the financial impact of the NFL Sunday Ticket package is still a mystery. It’s been almost one year since YouTube acquired the coveted football slate, and top Alphabet decision-makers indicated that the package has strong potential. “We expect to generate an attractive return over the life of the deal,” Alphabet President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat said during the Q3 2023 earnings call.
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Those returns may come even though Google could end up paying $2.5 per year to retain Sunday Ticket. Despite the hefty price tag, viewers have raved about YouTube’s Sunday Ticket coverage during the early weeks of the NFL season. The user experience and stream quality have been common points of praise.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told investors that YouTube’s Sunday Ticket partners are excited about new features that have been brought to the package. “We have heard positive feedback from our partners at the NFL,” Pichai said.
Despite Alphabet’s positive performance during the third quarter of 2023, investors are still concerned about a few struggling divisions within the tech giant’s empire. Google Cloud earnings fell short of analyst projections, which led to a 6% Wall Street dip during after-hours trading. As of this post, Alphabet’s stock price has fallen more than 8% on the day after Q3 2023 report went live.
