These YouTube statistics prove the huge value of YouTube. Its incredible reach and power demonstrated by all the musicians, celebrities, comedians that have kicked off their careers on YouTube.
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YouTube’s reach is greater than regular TV and cable stations. With over one billion users, YouTube is a platform where your message will reach millions of people - or potential customers. Your marketing strategy can only benefit from posting a YouTube video that clearly demonstrates your product or service.
YouTube videos are super easy to share, so can be integrated into all your social media channels, spreading your brand message far and wide. 323 days worth of YouTube videos are watched on Facebook every minute.
C’mon, how can you ignore this huge potential?!
The value of video marketing should not, must not be ignored. Check out these YouTube statistics, they’re insightful, helpful, amazing, and downright crazy.
Before you start, take a look at this awesome infographic that Laura, our cracking designer, has created.
YouTube stats - timeline
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Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim founded YouTube in 2005. Coming from PayPal, their plan was to design a platform where users could share video clips. Originally, YouTube was designed as a dating website. A video version of HOTorNOT - the matchmaking site where members rate the attractiveness of other people. Oh, that's super nice!
Early version of YouTube from WayBack Machine.
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Jawed Karim uploaded the first Youtube video on April 23, 2005. 18 seconds of unremarkable dialogue about elephants, “Me at the Zoo” received 30 million views - I guess it pays to be first.
- In September 2005, footage of Brazilian football player Ronaldinho, was the first video to pass one million views. During the three minute video, he hits the crossbar four times in a row - an early example of viral content.
- The video-sharing channel quickly won users and funding. On October 9, 2006, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion - that's $1.65 BILLION, woohoo!
- In November 2006, a lawsuit was filed against YouTube by the owner of website www.utube.com - Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment. The site, bombarded with people searching for YouTube, saw traffic increase from 1500 visits in a month to 2M+. Unable to cope, the site regularly crashed and allegedly lost money and sales. YouTube was asked to either surrender its domain name or help pay UTube’s maintenance costs. UTube eventually changed its domain name to www.utubeonline.com.
- January 2010 - YouTube entered the online movie rental market. Initially, it offered five films from indie filmmakers, with this offer expanding over time.
- February 2015 - YouTube Kids launched. Its focus firmly on family-friendly entertainment.
- August 2015 - YouTube Gaming was introduced as a place where people could watch other people play video games - okaaaaay.
- Later in 2015, YouTube Music hit the streets. It was designed to help music fans find music.
- October 2015, YouTube launched YouTube Red. The company offered users $9.99/month membership for access to ad-free videos. Along with unlimited access to downloadable videos, members could also access Google Play Music.
- August 29, 2017 - YouTube introduced a new logo, typeface, color scheme and other visual changes to desktop and mobile app.
This...
...became this.
YouTube stats - YouTube statistics
- There are 88 countries that enjoy localized versions of YouTube.
- YouTube is broadcast in 76 languages.
- $6,350,000,000 is how much it costs to run and maintain YouTube.
- $4,000,000,000 is the annual revenue generated from YouTube that Google receives - yikes!
- February 2017 - 400+ hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute.
- One billion hours of content is watched on YouTube every day.
- August 2017 - YouTube is ranked as the second-most popular site in the world by Alexa. Beaten by? You guessed it... Google.
YouTube stats - user lowdown
- There are currently 1,325,000,000 YouTube users.
- Every day, the world spends 46,000 years watching YouTube videos.
- Every month, there are 900,000,000 unique visits to YouTube.
- This is a biggie YouTube statistic. Ready?
In 2017, the number of hours of video on YouTube is 630,720,000 hours + 188,697,600 hours from previous years. Making a grand total of 819,417,600 hours of video added approximately in the 10 years since YouTube was born. With an average length of 10 minutes, that means there are 81,941,760+ videos currently on YouTube. - 70% of YouTube viewers come from outside the US.
- In the US, 180.1M people watch YouTube. Yowzer - a whopping YouTube statistic!
- The percentage of US Internet users - aged 13-17 that use YouTube, is 91%.
- YouTube reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year olds than any cable network in the US.
- In 2015, 18-49 year olds spent 4% less time watching TV, while time on YouTube increased by 74%.
- In 2015, 66 million subscribers spent the equivalent of 37,000+ years watching the top 10 music videos.
Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again reached over one billion views in just six months.
- 81% of US millennials use YouTube.
- Among millennials, YouTube accounts for two-thirds of the premium online video watched across all devices.
- 58% of US Generation X use YouTube.
- 43% of US Baby Boomers use YouTube.
- Almost 70% of YouTube videos are watched on mobile devices.
- The average time spent on YouTube per mobile session, is 40 minutes.
- Every minute of every day, 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.
- 576,000 YouTube videos are uploaded every day.
- Each and every day, there are 4,950,000,000 videos viewed on YouTube.
- One billion hours of video are watched on YouTube every day. That’s 100,000 years of viewing time - WOW!
- March 2015 - 10,000+ videos have been created in YouTube Spaces. These have generated 1B+ views and 70M+ hours of watch time.
- According to Mediakix, the average time spent per person, per day on YouTube is 40 minutes. Following close behind are Facebook - 35 mins, Snapchat - 25 mins, Instagram - 15 mins, and Twitter - one min. Speaking from personal experience, I’d have to disagree with the Twitter stat.
- The number of days worth of YouTube videos viewed on Facebook every minute is 323.
- There are 1500 YouTube channels with over 1M subscribers.
- By the year 2025, half of users under 32, will no longer subscribe to a pay TV service.
- 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online video platforms than live TV.
- In an average month, 8 out of 10 18-49 year olds watch YouTube.
- The time people spend watching YouTube on their television has more than doubled year on year.
YouTube stats - live on air
- In 2007, YouTube and CNN joined forces for a series of televised presidential debates. Candidates answered questions submitted by the public, via YouTube. This milestone in YouTube’s history, marked the platform as a mainstream medium and the Web as a bridge between the electorate and politicians.
The first-ever web-to-television debate partnership.
- Subsequent live streamed events included a U2 concert in 2009, and a Q&A session with Barack Obama in February, 2010. These events used third-party technology. September 2010 saw YouTube testing its own live streaming infrastructure.
- In 2010, Google confirmed it would live stream the Indian Premier League cricket globally, for free. It was the first major sporting event to be streamed around the world.
- Later that year, Arcade Fire was broadcast live from Madison Square Gardens.
- April 2011, YouTube launched YouTube Live. It was initially used to present real time broadcasts like the 2012 Olympics and Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the edge of space.
- May 2013 - creation of live streams was available to verified users with a minimum 1000 subscribers. In August, it was cut to 100 subs, in December the restriction was removed.
- In mid-2017, the live streaming feature was available in the YouTube mobile app, to users with 100 subscribers.
YouTube stats - business stats
- Nearly two-thirds of gamers - 64% - downloaded a game after seeing an ad for it on YouTube.
- Largest audience:
Lego - subscribers 3,976,776, videos 17,762, total views 5,912,266,645
Vat19 - subscribers 4,252,570, videos 1160, total views 3.627,106,196
Kids TV HD EggVideo.com - subscribers 0, videos 815, total views 3,491,584,541
- 61% of US enterprise companies use YouTube.
- Digital media companies are targeting video to attract some of the $180 billion in ad spend on traditional TV.
YouTube stats - keyword searches 2017
- Music 789M
- Songs 453M
- Minecraft 84.3M
- Movies 34M
- Kids video 22.2M
- Funny scary pranks! 23M
- Funny prank Videos 11.7M
- Happy 58.7M
YouTube stats - celebrities
- In 2016, the World’s 12 highest paid YouTube stars earned a combined total of $70.5 million, a 23% increase over 2015. The biggest earner was Swedish video game commentator and web-based comedian, Felix Avrid Ulf Kjellberg - a.k.a. PewDiePie. He pulled in $15M while people watched him play video games.
- PewDiePie’s YouTube channel has the most subscribers with 58M+. His other social media channels are pretty healthy too: 13M+ on Twitter and 13M+ on Instagram.
- Despacito by Luis Fonsi ft Daddy Yankee became the first video to achieve 3 billion views, quickly growing to 4 billion. 204 days after it was uploaded, Despacito became the most viewed video in YouTube history. With 4,465,094,734 views - and counting - it is the top music video of 2017 in more than 50 countries.
Personally, I think most of the views came from our very own, Pragati.
A virality map demonstrates how it went crazy online.
Look at how many views Demi Lovato received when she posted about Luis Fonsi on Instagram - over 3M!
- Musicians - largest audience
Justin Bieber - subscribers 32,778,607, videos 123, total views 16,535,109,223
Katy Perry - subscribers 25,631,491, videos 124, total views 14,637,853,847
Taylor Swift - subscribers 26,420,261, videos 82, total views 13,701,938,910
- The biggest debut of a video on YouTube came from Taylor Swift when she posted “Look What You Made Me Do” on August 30, 2017. In the first 24 hours, it earned 43.2 million views. Following the video’s release, views grew to 3M+ per hour.
- Despite being over 20 years old, the most popular trailer from films released before 2000 was Titanic (1997).
- Top film from the 80s? Ghostbusters (1984) - of course. The original movie averaged 70,000 views per month. Following the release of the updated 2016, views quadrupled 300,000+ per month.
Classic!
YouTube stats - April Fools
- YouTube features an April Fools prank on the site on April 1 of every year. In 2008, all links to videos on the main page were redirected to Rick Astley's music video "Never Gonna Give You Up", a prank known as rickrolling.
- 2009 - YouTube announced a new layout. When a user clicked a video on the main page, the page turned upside down.
- 2010 - YouTube temporarily released a "TEXTp" mode which transformed colors in videos to random uppercase letters. The idea? To reduce bandwidth costs by $1 per second.
- 2011 - YouTube celebrated its “100th anniversary” with a collection of sepia-toned silent, early 1900s-style films, including a parody of Keyboard Cat.
Tickle those ivories!
- 2012 - all videos uploaded to YouTube were made available on DVD. The DVDs would be delivered to your home in 175 trucks. New videos would be delivered weekly.
- 2013 - YouTube teamed up with satirical newspaper The Onion and announced that the channel was actually a contest which had finally come to an end. The winner of the contest would be revealed when the site went back online in 2023.
- 2014 - YouTube announced that it was responsible for the creation of all viral video trends, revealing previews of upcoming Internet memes, including "Clocking", "Kissing Dad", and "Glub Glub Water Dance".
- 2015 - YouTube added a music button to the video bar that played samples from "Sandstorm" by Darude.
- 2016 - YouTube introduced a quirky way to watch videos - in 360 - degree mode with Snoop Dogg.
YouTube stats - total eclipse
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One of the biggest social media moments of 2017, was witnessed in August, 2017. The solar eclipse became one of YouTube's largest livestreamed events. It was live streamed by news organizations, educational institutions, and multiple channels. By 10:20 a.m. PT, more than 2 million people were simultaneously watching live streams, including NASA’s - the most popular.
YouTube saw a major spike in viewership of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart."
Conclusion
Wow, amazing YouTube statistics! Use them to inspire your YouTube marketing campaigns. If you’d like to find real-time insights and analytics about how your campaigns are performing, your audience, brand awareness, and competitors - we’re here to show you how - sign up for a free demo now.
Which is your favorite YouTube statistic? Me? I’m loving the April Fool pranks, especially the Keyboard Cat parody.
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Please note: stats are fluid and may have changed since publication.
