YouTube has brought in $5 billion in advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2020 — a sign that advertisers who pulled back on their spending because of the corona virus earlier in the year may be returning to something resembling normal.

YouTube now has more than 30 million music and premium paid subscribers — 35 million, including free trials — and YouTube TV has more than 3 million subscribers. And in what may be a sign of the times, views for guided meditation videos on YouTube were up 40 percent since March, and DIY face mask tutorials have been viewed over 1 billion times, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on a call with investors to discuss the earnings results.

“We’re pleased at the degree to which advertisers really reactivated their budgets in the third quarter,” said Ruth Porat, CFO of Alphabet and Google, on a call with investors. She added that it was evidence that consumers are showing strong demand across nearly all verticals. “YouTube’s strong watch time growth enables advertisers to reach audiences they can’t reach on TV.” The company had made investments in content moderation to ensure both creators and users on YouTube have a positive experience, Porat said.

Google’s advertising division brought in revenue of $37.1 billion, an increase from $34 billion last year. YouTube ads revenue increased 30 percent from $3.8 billion in the third quarter of 2019.

“This year, including this quarter, showed how valuable Google’s founding product — search — has been to people,” Pichai said on the call.

Google’s Cloud division had revenue of $3.44 billion, up from $2.3 billion a year ago, and its Search segment had revenue of $26.3 billion, up from $24.7 billion. Pichai said customers are increasingly moving to the cloud, “to drive efficiency and lower IT costs,” adding that the future of work is creating “significant growth in demand” for Google’s cloud products. He added that next quarter, Google will break out its cloud division as a separate reporting segment.

Source- The Verge