If You Invested $1,000 in Google Stock When It Acquired YouTube, Here's How Much You'd Have Today

In 2006, Google made its largest acquisition in company history. The company, which is now known as Alphabet Inc GOOGGOOGL acquired video platform YouTube for $1.65 billion, a move that has boost the company's annual revenue.

Here's a look at how Google stock has performed since the acquisition, as the video platform celebrates its 20^th anniversary.

What Happened: On Oct. 9, 2006, Google announced it was paying $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock deal to acquire video platform YouTube, which is now one of its biggest revenue drivers.

"The YouTube team has built and exciting and powerful media platforms that complement Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said at the time.

"Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers.”

In the last fiscal year, YouTube ads brought in $36.2 billion in revenue, broken down below by quarter:

• Q1: $8.1 billion
• Q2: $8.7 billion
• Q3: $8.9 billion
• Q4: $10.5 billion

The YouTube segment has also increased Alphabet's presence in the streaming market with an offering that includes its own videos and content from other media partners with YouTube TV.

Alphabet is now the partner for NFL Sunday Ticket, landing a deal with the National Football League that could help boost subscriptions.

Alphabet gets subscription and advertising revenue from the YouTube segment, which is believed to total more than $50 billion on an annual basis.

YouTube celebrated its 20^th anniversary on April 23, 2025. The video platform said over 20 billion videos have been uploaded on YouTube since the platform's first video "Me at the zoo" 20 years ago. The video platform sees an average of 20 million videos uploaded every single day.

It's crazy to imagine paying $1.65 billion for YouTube today, with the unit making over $8 billion each quarter for Alphabet in revenue.

Analysts think YouTube could be worth significantly more today on a sum-of-the-parts valuation. Needham analyst Laura Martin said that if Alphabet spun off YouTube today, the video company could be worth $54 per share or $666 billion.

Talk about a huge potential return on a $1.65 billion acquisition.

Read Also: YouTube Beats Out Spotify As Top Podcast Platform With 1 Billion Users, CEO Promises Bigger Paydays For Creators

Investing $1,000 in GOOG: Investors who liked the buyout of YouTube or saw the potential of Google's growth with the video component being added have been pleasantly rewarded.

Shares of Google traded at $430 on the morning of Oct. 10, 2006, the day after the YouTube acquisition was announced.

A $1,000 investment in Google stock could have purchased 2.33 shares at the time. Google had a two-for-one stock split in 2014 that would have turned the investment into 4.66 shares. A 20-for-one split would have made the investment a total of 93.20 shares in 2022.

The 93.20 shares would be worth $14,846.76 today, based on a price of $159.30 for Alphabet shares at the time of writing.

This represents a hypothetical return of 1,384.7% over the last 18 years and 6 months.

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This article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated.