YouTube's ads business - bigger than the entire global record business

Music Business Worldwide is pretty much impressed by the latest YouTube revenue numbers: the world’s largest video platform generated $7.205 billion in revenues from advertising in Q3 this year, up 43%, or by over $2 billion, year-on-year versus the same quarter of 2020. In the first nine months of this year, YouTube generated $20.21 billion from advertising, more than it generated from ads in the entirety of both 2020 ($19.77bn) and 2019 ($15.15bn). To put that in perspective - in 2019, the global record industry generated $20.2 billion in global wholesale revenues. In 2020, it generated $21.6 billion.