YouTube Ad Revenue Inches Up 4.8% in Q2, Slowest Growth in More Than Two Years

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorYouTube still banks a huge bucket of ad bucks — hitting $7.34 billion in the second quarter — but the video giant’s growth has decelerated to its lowest pace in more than two years.YouTube’s ad revenue grew just 4.8% in Q2, according to Alphabet, the parent of Google and YouTube.

That was under Wall Street expectations: Analysts had forecast YouTube ad revenue increasing 7% year over year to $7.49 billion.

The results come after YouTube’s Q1 ad sales had missed estimates by a wider margin.YouTube saw a 84% revenue boom in the same period last year, to $7 billion, coming off the relatively anemic 5.8% bump in Q2 2020 amid the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Alphabet first broke out YouTube ad revenue for the 2019 calendar year. Click here to sign up for Variety’s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial news, and more.Overall, Alphabet slightly missed earnings forecasts.