YouTube still not profitable, but it's close

YouTube CEO, Eric Schmidt, told a French university today that Google's online video sharing website, YouTube, is getting close to being profitable.

According to Barrons.com, YouTube, five years old, hasn't made any profit since its launch. The giant online video sharing website generates more than two billion views a day from users all around the globe. Google purchased YouTube almost four years ago for $1.65 billion, a deficit it has yet to make back.

Although YouTube might not be profitable just yet, Google said they are very pleased with it's trajectory and expect it to start being profitable very soon. Google said last year that YouTube came close to profitable, but since then, hasn't surpassed its operating costs - a cost that Google Inc. has absorbed.

Google's CFO Patrick Pichette said they do not comment on YouTube, so knowing exactly how much the company makes or spends on operating costs is unknown. It costs Apple an estimated $1 billion a year to maintain the iTunes store, and YouTube likely costs more to operate bandwidth wise. Google earned $6.82 billion in revenue in the Q2 of 2010.