YouTube Stung by TikTok Rivalry, iPhone Changes That Hit Facebook

tech.hindustantimes.com:

For months, investors have worried about twin forces walloping Facebook’s business -- the targeted advertising bans on iPhones and the rising popularity of TikTok. 

The concerns should also have been directed at Google’s YouTube. Combined with economic upheaval from the war in Ukraine, those pressures contributed to an abrupt sales slowdown for the world’s largest video service and a rare earnings miss for Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. The shares fell about 3% in extended trading Tuesday after the company reported first-quarter results. 

Over the past year, Apple Inc. has upended social media companies by placing tight restrictions on third-party ads on iPhones. That hit Meta Platforms Inc., which operates Facebook and Instagram, and other mobile-centric social networks like Snap Inc., while leaving Google relatively insulated because it’s less reliant on that form of targeted ads. 

But not YouTube. Previously, Google said Apple’s privacy changes had a small impact on its video site, but Tuesday its executives said YouTube saw a slowdown in growth of direct-response ads, the marketing formats that use targeting to reach consumers. YouTube advertising was the weakest link in Alphabet’s first-quarter results, posting just a 14% increase to $6.87 billion, more than $500 million shy of analysts’ estimates. A year earlier, the video unit reported a 48% jump in the same quarter. 

“YouTube [is] now feeling the sting,” said Dan Morgan, a senior portfolio manager at Synovus Financial Management. That’s particularly worrisome for the stock since YouTube, along with Google’s cloud division, “was expected to be the next leg of growth,” he added.

Google executives attributed some of YouTube’s troubles to Russia’s invasion of