That figure does not include money YouTube passes on to
advertising partners and content creators. This year Google will
keep 35% of that total or $1.96 billion, according to eMarketer's
estimate. Google generally takes a 45% cut of advertising sold into
its content partners, and Google's take is exected to rise in the
coming years as it
phases out less-favorable revenue-sharing deals with TV
networks.
After revenue sharing, YouTube will take $850 million this year
from video ads served in the U.S., which is up 50% from last year.
Including display ads, YouTube will will net $1.08 billion this
year in U.S. ad revenues.
For context, that's still just 6.3% of all of Google's net U.S.
ad revenues for the year, but 20.5% of the $4.15 billion U.S.
online video ad market.
Google doesn't release YouTube's revenue figures or break them
out in public filings, so take eMarketer's numbers for what they
are, an estimate based on studies conducted by other research
firms, investment banks, its own analysis and interviews with
marketers. Having said that, YouTube is the biggest proxy for
digital video, and the projections offer a peek at where that
market stands.
YouTube has made a point in recent years of improving content
quality in order to boost ad rates to TV levels. But for all the
investments it has made in raising the volume of premium content to
attract a bigger share of advertising budgets, the service seems
most reliant on rising audience numbers for its revenue growth.
"Growth in impressions and viewership, particularly across
devices, is probably the major growth driver [behind YouTube's ad
revenues]," said eMarketer VP-communications Clark Fredricksen.
EMarketer isn't breaking out YouTube's mobile ad revenue, but
Google's chief business officer Nikesh Arora said in July that the
service's
mobile-ad sales had grown by 300% between January and June of
this year. More than 1 billion people tune in to YouTube each
month, and roughly 40% of views occur on phones and tablets.