YouTube is undeniably the video sharing platform of this era.
It is the second largest search engine in the world, and in recent years, its growth has exploded, much because of the increased demand for video content from consumers.
Today, you probably find yourself watching more video tutorials instead of reading, more videos from influencers within your space, and everything in between. And most likely, you probably find yourself on YouTube most of the time when watching.
With its huge database of video content, there’s essentially video content about anything and everything, as long as it complies with YouTube’s rules.
Humans are visual creatures, and so it’s not very strange that we now consume video content more than ever. The fact is that humans have always been visual creatures who have an easier time consuming video content, but since the infrastructure of consuming it, the access of video content has been very limited, and video producing and distribution has been extremely expensive, through history, we’ve found ourselves often consuming other types of content, mainly text.
But with YouTube, the distribution of video content has been completely revolutionized.
Today, virtually anyone can record a video that is relatively high quality with the phone that’s in their pocket, and then upload it to YouTube for the world to see.
The huge user base of YouTube has also made the platform into a tremendous platform for reaching your target audience and thus leveraging it as a marketing tool.
In this post, we’re taking a look at 67 YouTube statistics that prove its immense power and the impact it has on our society and the way we consume video content.
6 out of 10 people prefer online video platforms to live TV
This is one of the YouTube statistics that prove just how far the internet and the way we consume content.
Back in the days, the television was all the fuzz, but what YouTube does is it allows us to watch exactly what we want when we want – on demand.
No longer do we have to just take what is served to us, but instead, we can decide what we want to consume instead of having someone else decide.
YouTube’s huge database of videos makes this incredibly easy, as essentially anything you can think of that you want to consume is just a simple click away.
With YouTube, we don’t have to sit and watch never-ending commercials, instead, we can watch a short, few second advertisement, and if we don’t enjoy it, click skip.
By 2025, half of viewers under 32 will not subscribe to a pay-TV service
This YouTube statistic proves just how big of an impact YouTube has on our society. No longer is the television the rule of visual content in our society, because the internet is now the middleman, and YouTube is the place that people turn for videos. Television is steadily losing traction because of the simple reason that it doesn’t give us the opportunity to watch what we want when we want. Additionally, pay-TV serves cost money, but if you instead decide to turn to YouTube to consume video content, you won’t have to pay a single dollar. All you need to do is pay a few seconds of your time to watch an ad every now and then, but with television, you have to do both.
Lastly, what is so interesting about this is that there is a cross-road of how the television channels are dealing with the change in the way we consume videos. Some completely ignore the internet and ponder the fact that Television is not having the same traction and power that it once had, and others embrace the internet and YouTube and understand that the only way to survive in the future is to start distributing there in order to get the audience’s attention.
In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year-olds watch YouTube
YouTube is huge within essentially all age groups, but as you’d expect, it is especially huge within the younger generations, many of which never watch television anymore.
If you are a brand and are wondering about ways you can reach and imapact your target audience, you should definitely be producing video content and sharing it to YouTube.
In 2015, 18-49 year-olds spent 4% less time watching TV while time on YouTube went up 74%
This is just one of the many YouTube statistics which proves in which direction television, the way we consume video content, and most importantly, where YouTube is heading.
While television is losing traction, more and more people turn to the internet – a place where YouTube is dominating the video scene. Since this is a trend that will only get more and more obvious, YouTube has an incredible potential and has all preconditions to grow even more powerful than it is today.
On mobile alone, YouTube reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any broadcast or CABLE TV network
This is one of the YouTube statistics that leave me mind-boggled. If you’d ask people where the video landscape is heading 10 years ago, nobody would even be able to imagine that the internet and video sharing platforms on the web would grow more powerful than traditional television in many age groups. This just goes to show the incredible power of YouTUBE and how it is disturbing the video landscape.
You can navigate YouTube in a total of 76 different languages (covering 95% of the Internet population)
Believe it or not, but not everyone in the world speaks English. In other to continue gaining grounds and building its audience, YouTube needs to adapt its language to suit its users, and fortunately, YouTube has realized this, and so that’s exactly what it is doing. Being available in 76 languages (and counting) means serving to almost the entire world language-wise, which gives it tremendous preconditions to grow.
The platform has also launched in over 88 countries
Having been launched in over 88 countries, it serves a huge audience. This means that it has incredible opportunities to grow even further, not just in a few countries but to actually dominate and rule the world when it comes to video sharing and consumption.
Daniel Middleton, better known as DanTDM, is the highest earning YouTuber, bringing in $16.5m in 2017
10 years ago, no-one would ever have thought that someone would be able to make that kind of money by sharing videos on the internet, but today, that’s a reality.
Today, there are plenty of people who have the profession ”youtube”, and life off of YouTube by creating videos and sharing them on the platform. The most interesting part about this is that on YouTube, everyone has the opportunity to become a large YouTuber and make tons of money from their videos. With traditional television, only a selected few can become broadcasters and anchors, thus making it less attractive for people, compared to YouTube and other video sharing sites.
YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and third most visited site after Google and Facebook
Youtube is clearly a social media platform you cannot afford to neglect in marketing. It has a huge audience and is a place where people actively go to search for things they want to watch and learn about.
If you’re working with SEO to rank better on search engines, you should also pay attention to Youtube and create content which people can find when searching for topics related to your industry.
300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
This is absolutely insane! The good news is that with that said, YouTUbe offers an endless amount of content about essentially any topic in the world.
We watch over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos a day
Like I said, humans are visual creatures who, generally, learn better by watching a video as opposed to reading. What’s more, when consuming video, we don’t have to put in as much effort as when we’re reading – we can be more passive, and this is obviously very attractive for a lot of people.
More than half of YouTube views come from mobile devices
This is one of the most interesting YouTube statistics if you ask me. It’s clearly a trend that we’re doing more on our mobile phones as we’re always carrying them around, and at the same time, they have become more powerful than ever.
With that in mind, you need to produce video content which is optimized for mobile and can be consumed on both mobile and on a computer.
The average mobile viewing session lasts more than 40 minutes
The average reading on a site lasts a lot shorter than that and that’s not so strange after all when you consider the fact that we’re visual creatures.
Video content is much more engaging than any other form of content, which means that it keeps us glued for a longer time. When creating content, you should, therefore, focus on making it engaging and interesting from the start to the very finish, because the preconditions in humans are already there.
The first video to hit one million views was a Nike advert featuring Ronaldinho
This YouTube statistic goes to show that brands can find tremendous success on the platform. Not only can entertainers and other people find success on the platform, but brands can also reach a ton of people using the platform, and thus gain incredible marketing benefits.
The video with the highest number of views is currently the music video for ‘Despacito’ by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. It has over 4.7 bn views
4.7 billion! The world has 7 billion people, and so in theory, that would mean you have the opportunity to reach almost everyone in the world with YouTube. If that’s not evidence of a powerful marketing tool, I don’t know what is.
It took Gangnam Style, a previous most watched video, five months to hit 1 billion views. In comparison, Despacito took just 97 days
The Gangnam style TouTube video was released on Jul 15, 2012, whereas Despacito was released on Jan 12, 2017.
This proves that even though YouTube was huge in in 2012, it is even bigger today, and its growth and importance on the web is a trend that shows all signs of only getting greater. As such, it has an easier time gaining traction and impacting our society.
The video with the most views that isn’t a music video is ‘Huge Eggs Surprise Toys Challenge’ by Ryan ToysReview. It currently has over 1bn views
There are, on average 1,000,000,000 mobile video views per day
This number is so huge that many people will have a hard time knowing what number it is.
And remember, this is just mobile views, not all YouTube views.
In 2014, the most searched term was music. The second was Minecraft
This is a trend worth paying attention to as it can give an indication of what type of content you should try to create on the platform. Remember, however, that this was in 2014, and those two terms are no longer the most popular ones. This also proves that it is important to stay up to date with the latest trends and what people are looking for on the platform so you can leverage the trends that exist right now.
The time people spend watching YouTube on their TV has more than doubled in the last year
People are using their television to actually watch television channels less and less, and instead use their TV to watch YouTube and other shows online. So, if people are watching their television, don’t take for granted that they’re watching actual television shows because they might as well be watching YouTube.
Among millennials, YouTube accounts for two-thirds of the premium online video watched across devices
It’s not surprising that the younger generation is the generation that consumes the most online video, but the fact is that people from of ages are watching YouTube. But what’s even more interesting is that YouTube accounts for a whopping two-thirds of all the videos they watch online. This just goes to show just how powerful and enormous YouTube actually is.
9% of U.S small businesses use Youtube
This is one of the most interesting YouTube statistics in terms of marketing.
While 9% isn’t a lot, this is a number that will only continue to increase. Brands are striving to reach their target audience and get their attention, and this means that brands follow their customers closely, and then try to do things where their attention is in order to gain marketing benefits. As more and more consumers are turning to YouTUbe (and have done so for the last couple of years), more brands will be using YouTUbe in the future. At the same time, with only 9% of small business using YouTube as a marketing channel, there’s plenty of room for growth.
As of October 2014, YouTube has paid out $2 billion to rights holders since 2007
With the increased usage and popularity of YouTube, that number is today much higher. People who upload videos to YouTube and have ads on their videos make money from the ads, which is split with YouTube. This is how people can make money by creating videos on YouTube.
The number of channels earning six figures each year on YouTube has increased by 50% year on year
It’s all about supply and demand. As more of the consumers’ attention has gone to YouTube, more brands will want to advertise on the platform. This means an increased revenue for YouTube but also for the content creators who are sharing videos on the platform which then people consume.
YouTube statistics: The most popular branded channel is currently LEGO, which has amassed over 6bn views
This is one of my favorite YouTube statistics.
Why?
Because it goes to show that brands too can find great success on the platform.
Lego has amassed a huge following as well as incredible amounts of views, and if you were to pay for marketing in order to reach 6 billion people, you’d have to pay an enormous sum. Lego, however, has only leveraged the organic reach of the platform and reached a ton of people not paying a single dollar. All they’ve done is invest resources to create the videos.
Viewers who complete TrueView ads—watched to completion or at least 30 seconds—were 23 times more likely to visit or subscribe to a brand channel, watch more by that brand, or share the brand video
Not only are the videos that are uploaded on YouTube powerful, but this YouTube statistic goes to show that the ads on the platform are also tremendously powerful.
This is something worth having in mind as a brand, as you can gain amazing results form its ads. This is maybe no surprise since YouTUbe is owned by Google, and thus allows great targeting to reach only people who truly matter with your ads. What’s more, since humans are visual creatures, we tend to be more impacted by video ads than any other form of advertisements.
Viewers who are exposed to TrueView ads but who don’t watch to completion are still 10 times more likely to take one of those actions.
Video content is far more engaging than other forms of content, and as a result, it will lead to better-performing ads.
When brands use TrueView, they see views of previously existing content increase by up to 500% after posting new videos
This is one of the YouTube statistics that show ads on YouTube aren’t just effective in terms of driving results in the ad you share, or driving people to your site, but it also shows that the brands that use true view YouTube ads get a greater interest from their audience on their previously existing content as well, thus driving them more marketing benefits than those that can be seen from the ad itself.
In 2014, four of the top 10 videos were adverts
Believe it or not, but it is actually true!
In other words, videos from ads, such as adverts see a great interest from people, and despite these being ads, they are able to drive great results , even though the organic reach on YouTUBe is leveraged, and no-one is ”forced” to watch them.
In 2018, the 95% of the most watched videos were music videos
The most viewed brand videos are on average 31–60 seconds long (32% of all views)
This is one of the more practical YouTube statistics which is worth having in mind when you yourself are going to create YouTube videos.
A common question by people who are using (and are planning to start using YouTube) is how long their video should be, and since the most viewed videos are, on average 31-60 seconds long, chances are, you’ll find most success from videos that are of this length as well.
This has to do with the human attention span being very short. If you want people to watch your complete video from start to finish, you have to look at creating videos that are relatively short.
Note, however, that this does not mean you can’t drive great results from videos that are longer, because you can.
Remember, though, video content doesn’t need to be long to be effective.
Interbrand’s Top 100 Brands are collectively uploading a video to YouTube every 18.5 minutes
-The same brands have an average of 2.4 channels
Just like you can have different social media accounts for different things, you can have different channels that create different type of videos that are focused on different things and cater to different audiences. As a brand, you can, for example, have one channel where you upload videos where you touch on customer-support related questions, one channel where you upload your ads, and another one where you share goofy sketches.
Searches of “how to” videos on YouTube are growing 70% year on year
More and more people turn to YouTube to get help learning how to do something. Chances are, you’ve done so too.
An important reason for this is that watching a Youtube video makes it much more concrete, as you can follow the process step-by-step, as opposed to reading about the process.
What’s more, it has also been found that humans learn better through visual contents o this can play a part too.
The very first YouTube video was uploaded on 23 April 2005
While YouTUbe has really started gaining traction in recent years, especially since the interest in video has increased, YouTube has actually been around for more than 13 years now, and I promise you that the YouTube you know today is not the YouTube it was when it was launched.
The total number of people who use YouTube – 1,300,000,000
This is a number that is quite hard to grasp, but it is the reality, and it means incredible opportunities for you as a bran, since a lot of people within your target audience are, with almost 100 percent certainty using the platform. This means that almost all types of brands can find success on the platform and use it as a marketing tool.
300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute!
It might sound unlikely, but this number will actually continue to increase.
Almost 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day
If you start leveraging YouTube as a marketing tool, you can start gaining some benefits of these 5 billion video views.
YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day
This makes YouTube one of the largest websites in the entire world.
In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year-olds watch YouTube
YouTube is used widely by the younger generation, but not solely. The good news is that if you’re a brand which targeted individuals within this age group, you have all preconditions to succeed and reach a huge amount of people through your YouTube videos.
By 2025, half of the viewers under 32 will not subscribe to a pay-TV service
For television channels, this is one of the YouTUbe statistics that is absolutely terrifying. But for some, adaption is their strategy. No matter how much you want everything to remain the way it always has, it won’t, and you can either neglect it and end up behind, or, you can embrace the trends we’re seeing with video consumption, and make Youtube, the single largest video sharing platform a part of your marketing strategy, and make sure you drive amazing results from it.
6 out of 10 people prefer online video platforms to live TV
This is not so strange really. With online video, you decide what you are going to watch, when you’re going to watch it, and how you’re going to watch it.
Online video gives you the opportunity to watch video content on demand, and this gives consumers a greater power over what they are consuming. Not only will this lead to an increased consumption, but most importantly, it will lead to YouTUbe and other video platforms gaining greater traction.
The total number of hours of video watched on YouTube each month – 3.25 billion
That’s 37100 years of video consumed every single day. Puts a little bit of perspective to how great that number really is.
10,113 Youtube videos generated over 1 billion views
While far more videos than that are uploaded every single day, there’s a huge difference between videos and videos. Some videos on YouTube performs tremendously well, while others don’t. This is why you need to strive towards creating the best videos you possibly can because the act is that it’s not just enough to create a video and upload it. It needs to be high-quality, appealing and engaging for it to drive the most results.
80% of YouTube’s views are from outside the U.S
This is something worth paying attention to if you’re going to leverage YouTube for marketing.
While you may think that the vast majority of video views come from the US, they clearly don’t. At the same time, 20% of the total videos views that YouTube sees is a huge number, which means that no matter if you’re a business target people inside or outside the US, you can generate amazing results.
The average number of mobile YouTube video views per day is 1,000,000,000
Mobile is the future of the Internet, and it wasn’t long ago that Google reported that about 60% of the Google searches are done on mobile.
The average mobile viewing session lasts more than 40 minutes. This is up with more than 50% year-over-year
Not only is the number of people using YouTUBe increasing, but what is also increasing is the length of the YouTube sessions. What’s also interesting is that this number is only increasing. This is, of course, not very surprising if you consider the fact that videos are the most engaging and appealing type of video.
Female users are 38% and male users are 62%
While more males are using YouTUbe, the share of female users is quite high. At the same time, the number of female users on YouTube is increasing, and now, there are a large number of large female YouTubers who attract females to the platform. The best part is that no matter if you are a brand targeting females or males, you can reach your target audience by leveraging YouTube.
User Percentage by Age 18-24 – 11%, 25-34 – 23%, 35-44 – 26%, 45-54 – 16%, 50-64 – 8%, 65+ – 3%, unknown age – 14%.
As a marketer, this is one of the YouTube statistics which you’ll be happy to read.
Why?
Because it proves that no matter who your target audience is, they are to be found and reached on the platform.
While there’s a clear overrepresentation of YouTube usage from the younger audience, the trend is that the age of the YouTube users is increasing.
More than half of YouTube views come from mobile devices
The mobile trend is here, and it is only growing. People consume much of the video content on YouTube on their mobile, and this is something worth having in mind when deciding what types of videos you’re going to create, and how you’re going to create them.
YouTube’s mobile revenue is up to 2x y/y
With increased demand for video content, comes a greater supply. This also means a greater YouTUbe audience and thus more leverage YouTube makes its money from ads, and when they have more users, it means that it can make more money. Simple as that.
The number of hours people spend watching videos on YouTube is up 60% year-over-year, the fastest growth we’ve seen in 2 years
If you thought the Internet getting its first one billion users after 36 years was quick, remember that YouTube reached a billion users after 10 months.
The internet landscape is only moving at a greater speed since information can be exchanged in the blink of an eye. The fast growth of YouTube, as a result of the increased demand for video content, will only be more evident and only increase in speed.
YouTube has launched local versions in more than 88 countries
Adaption is key, and in order to grow YouTube’s user base, they need to make it available in more languages as well as create local versions of it, and that’s exactly what they’ve done. This is an important reason for YouTube’s success and expansion.
Approximately 20% of the people who start your video will leave after the first 10 seconds
It has been found that humans have a shorter attention span than goldfish, and while that fact alone is quite sad, it’s reality, and this means that you have to create your videos accordingly.
Make sure you have a powerful intro which grabs your viewers’ attention right from the very second and makes them engaged to continue watching. If you don’t, you’ll, as this and several other YouTube statistics prove, lose them.
The Annual cost of running and maintaining YouTube is $6,350,000,000
Believe it or not, but despite YouTube’s enormous success and giant user base, YouTube is actually losing money each and every single month due to the insane cost of running it.
Google’s annual revenue generated from YouTube is $4,000,000,000
As you can see, the revenue generated from YouTube doesn’t exceed its costs, resulting in a business that is actually losing money. At the same time, YouTube has a huge user base and an insane number of eyeballs, and if you know business, you know that eyeballs can translate into cash. This is why YouTUBe, despite losing money, is considered to be a very successful business.
Youtube generate 6% of Google’s ad sales revenue.
Despite YouTube driving a ton of money in revenue, the Google-owned platform only makes up for 6% of the total revenue of Google.
This just goes to show just how enormous and powerful Google is.
Google paid $1,65 billion for YouTube in November of 2006.
In 2006, YouTube was acquired by Google because they saw the increased interest in video content, and they also saw the incredible potential that YouTube had.
Today, it is the second largest search engine, after Google’s very own search engine Google.
Sequoia Capital invested only $11.5 million into YouTube in November 2005
The return on investment of that money if you were to translate the share purchased in 2005, is worth a lot more than that today, to say the least.
Partners revenue is up 50% y/y for the last 3 years
And it is only increasing.
The World highest paid YouTube stars earned a combined total of $127 million in 2017. This is a huge increase compared to $54.5 million in 2015
With increased interest in YouTUBE, increased usage, and increased views, YouTube now has more eyeballs which can translate into cash. As a result of the growing user base of YouTUbe, more advertisers turn to YouTube and invest money in hopes of great results. The best part is that, as we seen in other YouTube statistics, ads on YouTube has proven to be tremendously effective and able to generate a great ROI.
The youngest YouTube star Ryan ToysReview who is 6 years old who is six years old made $11,000,000 in 2017
No-one would have thought that young children would be able to make that kind of money on the internet ten years ago, but today, it is a reality. YouTUbe gives anyone the ability to create videos and share it with the world, and some people, evidently, succeed in doing it, and make a ton of money doing so.
The number of channels earning six figures per year on YouTube is up 50% y/y
The number of advertisers running video ads on YouTube is up more than 40% y/y. And for Youtube top 100 advertisers, the average spend per advertiser is up over 60% y/y
Marketers trade on one thing, and that is attention. With YouTube’s increase of attention, it means that more brands are turning to YouTube to run ads, The best part about this that ads on YouTube has shown to be incredibly effective as well, and give brands a tremendous ROI, and this further entices marketers to run ads on the platform. When ads are showing amazing results, you obviously also increase your budget. Accordingly, this is one of the YouTube statistics which shows that ads on the platform are actually working and that they work extremely well.
The average video is 4 minutes and 24 seconds
This is something worth having in mind when creating your YouTube videos. Humans have a short attention span, and while you can share longer videos and generate great results, the videos on YouTube are an average of 4 minutes and 24 seconds. Use this as a starting point and then work your way from there to find the ideal length for you. Then, of course, it has a lot to do what your video is about and how engaging it is.
The top brands in the world rely on YouTube to drive sales
A few years ago, people would be mind-boggled about the fact that brands are dependent on social media platforms to drive sales, but on the flip side, this YouTube statistic goes to show that YouTube is able to actually help brands drive sales.
