Today's Topics
Thanks for stopping by, today we explore:
- Google has lifted the lid on YouTube for the first time ever - just how big a business is it?
- Amazon is winning the race to the cloud, but just how far ahead are they?
- Which film is most likely to win Best Picture at the Oscars?
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Back in 2006 Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn, bringing its 67 employees and video platform into the search engine's growing empire. At the time it wasn't obvious whether it was a good deal; copyright-infringements, a fickle audience that was just finding its feet online and unprofitability were all big question marks.
Fast-forward 14 years and Google has - for the first time - released publicly just how much of their advertising revenue comes from YouTube. Over $15bn last year.
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It's fair to say that the YouTube deal has paid off pretty handsomely, but we were actually surprised that it wasn't a bigger piece of the Google pie. On last year's numbers YouTube was less than 10% of overall revenue.
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YouTube is pretty unique in its approach to user generated content. By paying content creators directly for views YouTube has managed to cement itself as the number one place to post videos. Post a cool original video on YouTube that gets a million hits and you could be in for a payday of between $2-5k depending on the content.
Post that same video on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, reddit or any other social media platform and of course you don't get anything - even if it goes viral.
That means that the $15bn number is actually not $15bn at all. In fact, CFO Ruth Porat hinted on a call that a majority of that revenue is paid out to content creators. So the true "net figure" to YouTube might be closer to $6-8bn.
Away from YouTube, Google also disclosed the details of their cloud computing business for the first time, revealing that it grew 53% in 2019 to almost $9bn of revenue.
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That's an impressive growth rate, but as the chart above shows it still leaves them a huge margin behind industry leader Amazon, whose web services division did roughly 4x the amount of business.
What about Microsoft and others?
Microsoft's Azure business (also cloud computing) is probably somewhere between Google & Amazon at around $15-20bn a year, but they don't explicitly disclose the numbers, instead bundling it in with a bunch of other stuff. One estimate from the Synergy Research Group estimated that Amazon was about 40% of the market, Microsoft another 20%, Google 10% and that the rest of the market was supplied by other, smaller, providers.
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We know you all like charts here. Particularly charts that offer insight into business, investing or finance.
That's why we think you'll love HyperCharts.
HyperCharts is a financial data visualization platform that provides fundamental financial and business metrics of popular stocks. HyperCharts makes it seriously easy to understand the data and KPIs behind your favourite companies. Insights into stocks like Tesla, Apple & Amazon are literally just a click away.
You can compare company financials, download data, explore historical stock prices, sync up your calendar with the earnings reports of your favourite companies and even get the financial results of those companies delivered straight to your inbox after their release - so you never miss a beat.
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It's that time of year again. The Oscars are just around the corner (Sunday) so we thought we'd give you the rundown on the data behind all of the Best Picture nominees.
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R-rated billion dollar blockbuster Joker might be the "fan favourite" according to the numbers - a huge box office and the joint-highest IMDB rating suggest so - but slightly controversial reviews may hold it back from scooping the biggest prize in cinema.
The latest odds have 1917 as the heavy favourite, which we think is probably a fair assessment. Solid ratings from audiences (8.5/10), critics (89%) and a decent box office taking ($253m) is a strong offer on its own. Throw in some unique cinematography that makes the whole movie feel like it's filmed in one take and the subject matter itself (World War One) and you've got some very solid Oscar-bait.
Most likely to surprise?
We think 1917 will probably win - but if you're looking for value on your bet then Little Women, Marriage Story or Parasite might be a good option. According to oddschecker, Parasite is about 3/1, Marriage Story is about 75/1 and Little Women is about 125/1.
What about the other categories?
The award for Best Actor looks pretty much nailed on for Joaquin Phoenix (odds of 1/50!), while Renée Zellweger is a similarly heavy favourite for Best Actress thanks to her performance as Judy Garland.
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Data Snacks
1) Nike's controversial Vaporfly running shoe, used by Eliud Kipchoge to break the 2hr marathon barrier, will be going on sale to the public. It claims to improve performance by 4%.
2) A parody website "Amazon dating" has emerged and reportedly had over 10,000 real applications to be featured on the site.
3) 98% of Facebook's revenue comes from advertising. Boeing made a $2.2bn operating loss in its most recent quarter. Almost 64% of Netflix's subscribers are outside of the US. We got these insights from just a few minutes on HyperChart's website - check it out.**
4) The latest data from Gallup polls suggest that Trump's approval rating (49%) is at its highest since he took office.
5) Chinese energy executives are forecasting that China's oil demand could fall by as much as 25% over the coronavirus. Check out our global oil demand chart from 2 weeks ago if you missed it.
6) Oreo cookies appear to get 30-40% less soggy after being dunked in chocolate milk, rather than normal milk, thanks to the results of this highly technical study.
**This is a sponsored snack.
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