YouTube Ad Revenue Expected to Top $5 Billion This Year

YouTube's business may growing even faster than previously thought.
The video streaming service is projected to generate $5.6 billion in global ad revenues this year, according to analysis from eMarketer, based on an analysis of data from other researchers, investment banks and company reports. That's up from a projected $3.7 billion in global ad revenue in 2012.
The majority of that ad revenue is paid back to content creators and ad partners, but according to the report, YouTube is expected to net just under $2 billion in ad revenue for 2013. Google, which acquired YouTube in 2006, does not break out data on the streaming video site's ad revenue.
Other analysts had previously predicted that YouTube would generate around $4 billion in gross ad revenue for 2013. eMarketer chalks up YouTube's greater-than-expected growth to changing viewer habits and Google's efforts to work with advertisers.
"eMarketer believes much of YouTube's growth has come from growing consumer demand to view video content across devices," the researcher writes in the report, "combined with Google's continuing efforts to accommodate advertisers' desire to reach the multiscreen audience through features such as Paid Channels and TrueView."