YouTube's Mountain of Money

Ariel Ariel
8/20/21

This is a single insight from This Week in Apps #75 - A Bunch of Firsts!. Check out the full article for more insights.


YouTube hasn't dropped out of the top 5 grossing apps in the U.S. App Store even once this year. Or last year. Or the year before that. Not once!

Since 2018, our app intelligence shows that YouTube's net revenue from the U.S. App Store alone grew 7x, rising from $7.5M in January of 2018 to $57M of net revenue in July. Again, this is only in the U.S. and only from its iOS apps.

How? Easy, YouTube's massive audience and focus on conversion.

If you're using YouTube on your mobile device, you know they show you the upsell popup at just the right time. And looking at its pricing, it feels pretty fair.

I talk about video streaming often and rarely include YouTube because it doesn't feel like a competitor to Disney+ or HBO Max, but with mobile revenue beating both consistently and a growing catalog that includes more than just cat videos, I don't see any reason why YouTube won't be getting into original content soon. And when they do, it'll be a very interesting move to watch.

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The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.

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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.


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