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YouTube, acquired by Google in 2005, has evolved from a repository of amateur videos into the world’s largest online video platform. The platform has numerous advantages that might help your company’s revenue skyrocket.
With this in mind, you might be interested in the following YouTube Statistics:
YouTube Affiliate Marketing Trends: 2 Massively Successful Examples
- James Charles, a famous makeup guru vlogger, earns an estimated $20 million per year and approximately $80k per video through YouTube affiliate marketing. (51)
- Lawrence Systems, a channel that focuses on open source, IT business, and computers, was founded in 2014, has 228k subscribers, and makes about $2.5k per month, on average. (51)
YouTube Statistics: Market Growth
- As of January 2021, the Netherlands had the greatest YouTube penetration among selected countries across the globe, at roughly 95%. (4)
- In May 2019, more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube per minute, up from only 24 hours per minute in 2010. (6)
- In March 2021, YouTube received over 3 billion desktop visits worldwide, while monthly mobile traffic was about 840 million⁹ visits. That was about 79% from desktop traffic and 21.2% from mobile devices. (9,11)
- Visits to YouTube from desktop devices remained higher globally, peaking at 3.2 billion⁹ monthly visits in May 2020.
- Between the first and the 2nd quarter of 2020, YouTube’s daily active users worldwide increased from 157 million to 230 million. (19)
- Youtube is one of the largest online video platforms globally, with the most popular channels having over 100 million subscribers. (25)
- The user growth rate was projected to slow to 4.9% in 2021. (28)
- YouTube audience is expected to 210 million in 2022, up from 192 million in 2018. (30)
- Subscribers on YouTube Premium reached 30 million in 2020. (31)
- Over 10,000 YouTube videos have reached a billion views. (32)
YouTube Traffic From Mobile Devices
- Monthly active users of the iOS YouTube app were 774 million from the 1st quarter of 2018 to the 2nd quarter of 2021. (9)
- As of the third quarter of 2021, the number of monthly active users was 845 million on iPad and iPhone combined. (10)
- In comparison, there were approximately 23.44 million monthly active YouTube users on the Android app worldwide. (9)
- During the third quarter of 2021, the YouTube mobile app had 315.12 million daily active users on iOS. Daily active users on the Android app during the same period were 7 million. (19)
- In 2021, users worldwide spent around 23.7 hours per month on the YouTube mobile app. Users from the U.S spent about 22 hours on the app. (20)
- Additionally, users in South Korea spend about 40 hours per month on YouTube, while users from India spend about 29.6 hours. (20)
YouTube Financial Statistics
- In 2020, YouTube’s revenue was $19.7 billion, a 30.4% increase over the previous year. (31)
- YouTube is a $15 billion-per-year company. (33)
- According to Alphabet’s report, YouTube generated $8.6 billion in ad revenue in Q4 of 2021 and $28.8 billion in ad revenue for the entire year. (35)
- On average, YouTube video influencers with 500k+ followers make $3857 per video. (37)
- In June 2021, residents from the United States generated the most YouTube in-app purchase revenue, which was approximately $29 million. (21)
- In the same period of June 2021, residents from Japan came in second with YouTube in-app purchase revenue of about $13.25 million. (21)
- The number of YouTube channels earning $10,000 or more increases by 50% year over year.
YouTube Ad Statistics
- YouTube’s ad revenue was approximately $7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020. (6)
- In the fourth quarter of 2021, YouTube’s worldwide ad revenues were $8.6 billion, indicating a 25% year-over-year increase. (25)
- YouTube’s global ad revenues were around $28.84 billion²⁶ in 2021, up over 46% from $19.7 billion in the previous fiscal period. (26)
- YouTube’s advertising revenue accounted for around 11.2% of Google’s overall revenue in 2021. (27)
- 55% of marketers use YouTube (38)
- Youtube viewers are 70% more likely to make a purchase after seeing a brand on YouTube. (39)
- Apple Inc was the leading advertiser on YouTube between March 2020 and February 2021, spending $237.15 million. The video platform generated $19.77 billion in ad revenue in 2020. (40)
- According to 2021 Statista data, 29% of marketers reported that pre-roll skippable YouTube video commercials are the most effective advertising format on YouTube. (41)
- Intent-targeted YouTube adverts have a 100% higher lift in purchase intent than demographic-targeted ads. (59)
YouTube Marketing Statistics
- In 2020, PlayStation was the most mentioned brand on YouTube, with approximately 17,000 channels mentioning it. (29)
- Steam, which is a video game digital distribution provider, was second, with 11,000 channels talking about it in 2020. (29)
- Etsy, an e-commerce website, came in third with 9.7 thousand channels talking about it in 2020. (29)
- A 2021 survey revealed that 89% of video marketers had plans of integrating YouTube into their video marketing strategy for 2021. (58)
YouTube Industry Statistics
- Between March and July 2020, the number of videos viewed with variations of “beginner” in the title increased by more than 50%. (55)
- In 2020, views for beauty tutorials grew by 50%. (55)
- Daily views of videos with the title “raising chickens” rose by 160% in 2020. (56)
- In March 2020, daily views of videos with the title “home office” grew by 210%. (56)
- YouTube is used by 50.9% of B2B decision-makers to research purchases. (60)
YouTube User Demographics Statistics
Here are some of the latest YouTube user statistics to know about:
- In January 2022, about 53.9% of YouTube users were men, while female YouTube users were approximately 46% in total. (5)
- YouTube’s global audience, as of January 2022, was composed of about 12% male users between 25 and 34 years of age, as well as around 9% female users between 25 and 34 years of age. (8)
- As of January 2022, Male users aged 35 to 44 years old using YouTube accounted for 9% of the total, while women of the same age had a 7.5% audience share during the study period. (8)
- According to 74% of adult users in the United States, YouTube is the most popular channel. (34)
- 33% of baby boomers go to YouTube to learn about a product or service. (53)
- 68% of baby boomers watch YouTube for entertainment. (53)
- About 77% of US internet users aged 15 to 25 accessed YouTube in the third quarter of 2020. (54)
- Mobile YouTube videos reach more 18-19-year-olds than any other television network worldwide. (61)
YouTube User Statistics
- A telephone survey conducted in the United States in 2021 revealed that 81% of internet users used YouTube, 69% used Facebook, and 40% used Instagram. (1)
- In 2021, YouTube’s global user base was roughly 2,240.03 million people. The total number of YouTube users worldwide is expected to reach 2,854.14 million by 2025. (2)
- In terms of the number of monthly unique users as of January 2022, India had the highest YouTube audience, with around 467 million subscribers using the famous social video network. (3)
- The United States came in second, with around 247 million YouTube views. Indonesia ranked in third place, with 139 million YouTube users. (3)
- In the U.K, which had a YouTube penetration of roughly 92% in 2021, approximately 57.6 million internet users engaged with YouTube during the study period. (3)
- In 2020, people watched 100 billion hours of gaming on YouTube. (36)
- YouTube’s algorithm recommends 70% of what viewers watch on the platform. (63)
- Users who watch at least 30 seconds of a YouTube advertisement are 23 times more likely to visit or subscribe to the brand’s YouTube channel. (64)
Top Earning Celebrities on YouTube
- Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson) was the highest-paid YouTuber in 2021, with earnings of around $54 million. (7)
- In the last measured year, Jake Paul earned an estimated $45 million. (7)
- In the past year, Anastasia Radzinskaya, who goes by Nastya on several of her channels, earned $28 million, surpassing YouTuber Ryan Kaji for the first time. (7)
- As of June 2020, Ryan from Ryan’s World was the highest-paid YouTube channel creator, earning $29.5 million. (23)
Youtube Pages Per Visit Worldwide
- YouTube users visited about 3.22 pages every time they accessed YouTube between January and March 2021. (14)
- As of the beginning of 2021, it was found that people accessing YouTube via mobile devices visited about 4.63 pages per visit. (14)
- The number of desktop visits during the study period decreased to 2.84 pages per visit. (14)
Monthly Searches Of Leading Keywords On Youtube
- Between January 2020 and March 2021, the term youtube was the most researched keyword with an average monthly volume search of between 151 and 185 million searches. (15)
- The second most searched term between January 2020 and March 2021 was YouTube to MP3, which got about 6.12 million monthly searches on average. (15)
- The term YouTube TV was searched 4 million times by the end of 2020, but by March of 2021, it had gained searched for 3.35 million searches. (15)
YouTube Social Media Monthly Traffic Referrers
- A study conducted in March of 2021 revealed that YouTube got 40 million referral visits from Facebook in that month. (16)
- In March 2021, YouTube’s own URL shortener youtu.be ranked second, accounting for more than 33 million monthly visits. (16)
- In the same research period of March 2021, it was revealed that Reddit.com referred about 26.6 million people to YouTube. (16)
YouTube Search Engine Organic Monthly Traffic Referrers
YouTube can help you generate a considerable amount of free traffic. Here are some more interesting traffic stats for YouTube:
- In March 2021, Google accounted for the vast majority of search traffic to YouTube, with about 707 million average monthly visitors coming from the search engine. (17)
- DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused search engine, came in second, with an average of 23 million visits in March 2021. (17)
- In the same period of March 2021, 7.5 million visitors came from Microsoft Bing, which ranked third on referrer traffic volume. (17)
Most Viewed and Subscribed YouTube Channels
- T-Series was the most-watched YouTube channel with around 3.52 billion views, while POPS Kids came in second with 3.43 billion views. (23)
- As of September 2021, T-Series also had the highest number of subscribers, which were 206 million. (24)
- YouTube Movies was second with 147 million subscribers as of September 2021. (24)
- Felix Kjelberg, PewDiePie’s video game commentator, came in sixth place with about 110 million subscribers. (23)
General YouTube Statistics
- In March 2021, users worldwide spent an average of 1777 seconds (29 minutes and 37 seconds) each user per visit to YouTube, which was about 3% more time than in March 2020. (12)
- In March of 2021, each mobile device user spend an average of 1361 seconds per visit on YouTube, while desktop visitors spend an average of 1888 seconds per visit. (13)
- YouTube’s app was downloaded 166 million times in 2021. (18)
- Children from Kenya spent half their time on YouTube, while kids from Japan spent about 38.39% of their time on the app. (22)
- Children from Spain spent approximately 22.19% of their app time on YouTube. (22)
YouTube Fun Facts
- Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube. (49)
- The first YouTube advertisements were rolled out in August 2007. (42)
- YouTube had 1 billion monthly active users as of March 2013. (43)
- A Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho was the first video to reach 1 million views on YouTube. (44)
- In Germany, 61.5% of the most popular YouTube videos are inaccessible. (45)
- 20% of YouTube users claim that if a video doesn’t captivate them in the first 10 seconds, they will abandon it. (46)
- Anyone in Los Angeles who garners over 10,000 subscribers or more on YouTube gets free space. (47)
- Pinkfong’s Baby Shark Dance song is the most viewed video on YouTube with 8.8 billion views. (48)
- Over 2 million YouTube creators make 6-figure incomes year on year. (50)
- YouTube is accessible in more than 100 countries and can be watched in 80 different languages. (52)
- In 2020, videos featuring the hashtag #withme in the title were viewed over 2 billion times globally. (57)
- Since the implementation of Content ID, YouTube partners have been responsible for over 800 million videos.
- After Netflix, YouTube is the second most popular online video content platform for millennials.
- When compared to those viewing television, YouTube mobile users pay 2X more attention to what they’re watching. When watching videos on their phone, 7 out of 10 users enjoy horizontal viewing. (62)
More Articles
YouTube Stats References:
- statista.com/statistics/246230/share-of-us-internet-users-who-use-selected-social-networks/ (1)
- statista.com/forecasts/1144088/youtube-users-in-the-world (2)
- statista.com/statistics/280685/number-of-monthly-unique-youtube-users/ (3)
- statista.com/statistics/1219589/youtube-penetration-worldwide-by-country/ (4)
- statista.com/statistics/1287032/distribution-youtube-users-gender/ (5)
- statista.com/statistics/277758/most-popular-youtube-channels-ranked-by-subscribers/ (6)
- statista.com/statistics/373772/youtubers-monetization-earnings-celebrity/ (7)
- statista.com/statistics/1287137/youtube-global-users-age-gender-distribution/ (8)
- statista.com/statistics/1256720/youtubecom-monthly-visits-by-device/ (9)
- statista.com/statistics/1252627/youtube-app-mau-worldwide/ (10)
- statista.com/statistics/1256738/youtubecom-monthly-visits-distribution-by-device/ (11)
- statista.com/statistics/1257254/youtubecom-time-spent-per-visit/ (12)
- statista.com/statistics/1257242/youtubecom-time-spent-per-visit-by-device/ (13)
- statista.com/statistics/1257273/pages-per-visit-youtubecom-by-device/ (14)
- statista.com/statistics/1256317/monthly-searches-top-youtubecom-search-keywords/ (15)
- statista.com/statistics/1256247/top-social-media-traffic-referrers-to-youtubecom/ (16)
- statista.com/statistics/1256254/top-search-traffic-referrers-to-youtubecom/ (17)
- statista.com/statistics/1285024/top-downloaded-entertainment-apps-worldwide/ (18)
- statista.com/statistics/1252638/youtube-app-dau-worldwide/ (19)
- statista.com/statistics/1287283/time-spent-youtube-app-selected-countries/#statisticContainer (20)
- statista.com/statistics/1251864/youtube-iap-revenues-by-country/ (21)
- statista.com/statistics/1270053/time-spent-youtube-app-children-by-country/ (22)
- statista.com/statistics/373729/most-viewed-youtube-channels/ (23)
- statista.com/statistics/277758/most-popular-youtube-channels-ranked-by-subscribers/ (24)
- statista.com/statistics/289657/youtube-global-quarterly-advertising-revenues/ (25)
- statista.com/statistics/289658/youtube-global-net-advertising-revenues/ (26)
- statista.com/statistics/289659/youtube-share-of-google-total-ad-revenues/ (27)
- statista.com/statistics/805671/youtube-viewer-number-growth-world/ (28)
- statista.com/statistics/1251849/leading-brands-youtube-worldwide/ (29)
- statista.com/statistics/469152/number-youtube-viewers-united-states/ (30)
- businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/ (31)
- statisticbrain.com/youtube-statistics/ (32)
- theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019 (33)
- pewresearch.org/journalism/2021/01/12/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-in-2020/ (34)
- socialmediatoday.com/news/youtube-generated-288-billion-in-ad-revenue-in-2021-fueling-the-creator/618208/ (35)
- blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-gaming-2020/ (36)
- emarketer.com/content/how-much-are-brands-paying-influencers (37)
- socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2021/ (38)
- blog.google/products/ads/new-ways-to-drive-action/?_ga=2.122735113.366374710.1611185634-867922050.1611185634&_gac=1.184789851.1611271695.CjwKCAiA6aSABhApEiwA6Cbm_0ZIYIKsU4Pd9_mXwJwmJhKUNjEtQ4lFp-SzRZendLORVEEUUORWCBoCImkQAvD_BwE (39)
- statista.com/statistics/1112288/us-youtube-advertisers-ranked-by-ad-spend/#:~:text=Leading%20U.S.%20YouTube%20advertisers%202020%2D2021%2C%20by%20ad%20spend&text=Between%20March%202020%20and%20February,of%2019.77%20billion%20U.S.%20dollars (40)
- statista.com/statistics/1102764/effective-youtube-ad-formats-world/ (41)
- blog.youtube/news-and-events/you-drive-youtube-experience/ (42)
- reuters.com/article/us-youtube-users/youtube-says-has-1-billion-monthly-active-users-idUSBRE92K03O20130321 (43)
- thedrum.com/news/2016/03/31/2005-nike-video-featuring-ronaldinho-becomes-first-youtube-film-reach-one-million (44)
- web.archive.org/web/20130131023548/https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/streit-zwischen-youtube-und-gema-diese-kultur-ist-in-deutschland-leider-nicht-verfuegbar-1.1584813 (45)
- advancedwebranking.com/blog/building-winning-video-seo-strategy-for-youtube/ (46)
- youtube.com/creators/ (47)
- youtube.com/watch?v=XqZsoesa55w (48)
- nytimes.com/2006/10/09/business/09cnd-deal.html (49)
- forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2020/10/05/2-million-creators-make-6-figure-incomes-on-youtube-instagram-twitch-globally/?sh=5540d3bb23be (50)
- voluum.com/blog/making-money-youtube-affiliate-marketing-2021/ (51)
- blog.youtube/press/ (52)
- thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/video/baby-boomer-youtube-trends/ (53)
- statista.com/statistics/296227/us-youtube-reach-age-gender/ (54)
- thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/2020-youtube-trends/ (55)
- youtube.com/trends/articles/what-it-means-to-stayhome-on-youtube/ (56)
- youtube.com/trends/articles/report-sources/ (57)
- wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/ (58)
- thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/consumer-intent-video-data/ (59)
- hootsuite.com/resources/digital2020-q4-update (60)
- thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/video/video-trends-where-audience-watching/ (61)
- thinkwithgoogle.com/data-collections/youtube-stats-video-consumption-trends/ (62)
- influencermarketinghub.com/how-does-the-youtube-algorithm-work/#:~:text=YouTube%20Chief%20Product%20Officer%20Neal,minutes%20to%20each%20viewing%20session (63)
- thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/video/how-youtube-extends-reach-engagement-of-video-advertising/ (64)
Steve West is the founder of entrepreneurnut.com, and has been working online since 2013. He specializes in SEO, YouTube, and affiliate marketing. Besides running his online business, he likes hiking, keeping fit, and eating cookies (which is why he needs to keep fit!)