UPDATED with comments from executives. Ruth Porat, Alphabet's chief investment officer and outgoing CFO, said the company was "pleased with the growth" of YouTube in the second quarter.
Alphabet revenue beats expectations, YouTube ad revenue lags
In a call with Wall Street analysts during the company's quarterly earnings call, Porat said the video platform saw "healthy watch time growth" and continued to "close the monetization gap with Shorts," the company's TikTok rival. (She didn't provide specific numbers for those items.)
There was also “continued momentum in connected TV, with brands benefiting in part from a continued shift in budgets from linear TV to digital,” she added.
In the third quarter, which ends September 30, Porat noted that YouTube may find the situation difficult to compare with the same period in 2023. The strength of retailers in the Asia-Pacific region was credited for driving YouTube's momentum in the same period last year.
