Google Inc (GOOG) to Apple Inc. (AAPL): Thank Your For Our YouTube Mobile Ad Rev!

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) are having a well-documented feud – make that a “thermonuclear war” as the late Steve Jobs put it – that has been wide-ranging across a number of fronts. From patent-infringement suits (through proxies like Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., for instance) to battles over apps that are or are not included on their respective Android and iOS platforms, things have really started to get ugly. And in some cases, the consumers have been hurt.

But at least in one area, while consumers may have been inconvenienced a bit, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has found itself is better financial position by one of Apple’s rejections. Perhaps Larry Page should send Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook a bouquet of flowers. Or maybe he should pitch in to that $600,000 cup of coffee with Cook and make it a $1 million cup. There is definitely a thank-you to be had. Why?

Well, it all started last fall when Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) showed Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) who was boss by bumping all Google apps off the native iOS 6 platform and kicked all of those apps back into the Apple App Store – including the ever-popular Google Maps and YouTube – for users to download.  While that led to some inconvenience by users – and some grumbling, because Google Maps for example was not placed into the App Store until weeks after iOS 6 launched and Apple’s native mapping app  was a dismal failure – it led to what has turned out to be a windfall. You see, because YouTube was no longer a native iOS 6 app, Google was able to provide the app for free with ad support; if it had stayed a native app, Apple was not allowing ad support.

The result has been dynamic, according to some estimates. On analysts has suggested from his analysis that Google’s mobile ad revenue from YouTube alone has gone up about 300 percent in the last six months – which is about parallel to the introduction of the YouTube app to the Apple App Store. The estimate by Wedge Partners is that YouTube generated about $350 million in mobile ad revenue just in the first three months of 2013. If that is accurate, that would signal a three-fold increase in mobile ad rev in one year.

What does that mean in the big picture, as $300 million doesn’t seem like much to a company with a $250,000 million market cap?

The growth in mobile ad revenue can certainly make sense, considering YouTube has quickly become one of the most popular apps on both iOS and Android. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) estimates that a full quarter of YouTube’s views worldwide come from mobile devices, or about 1 billion views per day. Just three short years ago, YouTube was getting 100 million views a day from mobile devices, and that was three years after it launched its mobile app platform in 2007. In just eight months, YouTube became the fourth most-popular free app download ever in the App Store, according to Apple’s own charts.

What are your thoughts about Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and its mobile ad presence on YouTube? Was this a massive screw-up by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), or was it an olive branch to give Google a chance to make money on iOS? Give us your feedback in the comments section below.

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