• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, July 17, 2015

Google and YouTube second-quarter earnings arrived yesterday and at least momentarily, it put a damper on those stories hinting at a faltering YouTube being kicked to the autoplay curb by feisty Facebook.

Now, It doesn’t seem that way.

Besides the results, Google and YouTube came armed with stats that, as YouTube stats always are, were pretty jaw-dropping. It reported that YouTube watch time, a measure they prefer compared to videos viewed (the Facebook way)  rose 60% percent in the second quarter.  

The number of paid clicks increased 18%.

Just on mobile, YouTube has more 18-49 viewers than any cable network. I used to think that was a bogus stat because YouTube viewers are in and out. (YouTube has had a version of it for a few years.) But now, YouTube reports, the average viewing on mobile devices alone is more than 40 minutes, which is up over 50% from a year ago.

Yet, YouTube, we hardly know ye. Credit Suisse has been charting YouTube data which Google for some reason makes hard to do, using information from advertisers.

Business Insider reports that according to those stats, YouTube and Google Pay now make up about 15% of Google’s revenues. It was just 4% in 2010, and Credit Suisse’s Stephen Ju reports, it should be 24% by 2020.

I wonder how on the button those predictions could be. Mobile phone growth is still happening, and YouTube is now maniacally committed to it.  

YouTube’s chief executive, Susan Wojcicki, says the video site’s top three priorities are “mobile, mobile, mobile” and why not? Earlier this year, Cisco said that last year, video viewing was responsible for 55% of the total mobile data traffic and predicted it will be up to 72% by the end of 2019. It’s really a matter of Be There Now for YouTube and everybody else.

As reported everywhere, Google, the mother ship, had Q2 advertising revenue that rose 11% to $16.02 billion. RBC analyst Mark Mahaney told Reuters that Google’s quarterly growth has been been in the mid-to-high teens since the beginning of 2013. Now, that’s an earning report.

"Such consistency is a rarity, especially for a behemoth business," he said. Today, the stock market, which never really said it hated Google, nonetheless pledged more love. It was trading at $666.76, up $86.91, or 14.99%.  

pj@mediapost.com