Google announced its financial numbers for the fourth quarter of 2012 on Tuesday, but the company also revealed something that it normally doesn"t offer as public information; namely just how much money can really be made by a YouTube video.
Specifically, Google"s chief business officer Nikesh Arora revealed during its financial conference call with analysts that the music video for the hit song "Gangnam Style" has now " ... generated over $8 million in online advertising deals." The video from Korean pop singer PSY quickly became the most viewed YouTube video of all time a few months after it went live in mid-July, and has now surpassed one billion views. Indeed, the video currently has over 1.2 billion YouTube views.
It"s estimated that PSY gets about half the money generated from all those YouTube views, but he has certainly made a lot more as an indirect consequence from that video"s popularity. The simple act of placing that clip on YouTube made him an international pop star almost overnight.
In terms of its overall financial situation, Google announced that the fourth quarter of 2012 saw the company generate a total of $14.42 billion in revenue, up 36 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Net income for the quarter was $2.89 billion.