During its third-quarter earnings call, Google and YouTube parent company Alphabet reported that YouTube TV subscribers had passed 3 million.
That’s up from 2 million reported in February — despite a monthly price hike from $50 to $65 at the end of the third quarter, following its deal to carry legacy Viacom cable networks.
The new number puts YouTube TV in second place among virtual vMVPDs, behind Hulu, with 3.4 million subscribers as of Q2.
Alphabet reported an ad revenue rebound in the third quarter.
Google’s ad revenue rose 9%, to $37.1 billion, from $34 billion in Q3 2019. Google search revenue rose 6.5%, to $26.3 billion. Total Google revenue rose 14.4%, to $46 billion.
YouTube’s ad revenue increased 32%, to $5 billion, from $3.8 billion a year ago. (YouTube’s Q2 ad revenue, unlike Google’s, was actually up slightly, from $3.6 billion.)
Overall, Alphabet’s revenue (including the cloud division and other units) grew 14%, to $46.2 billion, and its net income leaped nearly 60% to $11.24 billion, from $7 billion in Q3 2019.
That was a turnaround from this year’s second quarter, when the company’s revenue declined for the first time in its history (by 2% YoY, to $38.3 billion), and net income declined 30% YoY, to $7 billion.
Google Meet, the company’s videoconferencing platform, saw 235 million daily meetings and more than 7.5 billion daily video calls.
“We had a strong quarter, consistent with the broader online environment,” said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google. “It’s also a testament to the deep investments we’ve made in AI and other technologies, to deliver services that people turn to for help, in moments big and small.”
As for the antitrust lawsuit filed against Google last week by the Department of Justice and 11 attorneys general, “We believe that our products are creating significant benefits and we’ll confidently make our case,” Pichai said. “Our company’s focus remains on continuing our work to build a search product that people love and value.”