YouTube may be more than 15 years old, but the platform has only gotten better, faster and stronger with the passage of time.
If you’re considering diving into the world of video with the planet’s most popular video-sharing social network, we’ve got all the hot numbers you need to inform your strategy right here.
Read on for the YouTube user, usage and business stats that you need to know to hit the ground running (and get that camera rolling).
1. YouTube has 1.7 billion unique monthly visitors
In total, the site gets 14.3 billion visits per month: that’s more than Facebook, Wikipedia, Amazon and Instagram. Pop-u-lar!
2. 54% of YouTube users are male
For YouTube users over 18 years old, 46.1% identify as female and 53.9% identify as male.
This is a bit of a shift from just a couple of years ago (in 2020, 56% of YouTube users were male-identifying and 44% were female-identifying) so this could be a clue that we may be seeing more and more women are creating and consuming content on the platform in the years to come.
3. In the U.S., 62% of users access YouTube daily
Some even visit several times per day, according to Statista. Meanwhile, 92% of American users claimed to use the platform weekly and 98% say they access the site monthly.
4. Visitors spend an average of 19 minutes a day on YouTube
That’s a pretty generous chunk of time to be hanging out on a platform. Wanna capture some of those minutes for your own content? Here’s our guide to getting more views on YouTube and the ultimate breakdown of the current YouTube algorithm.
5. 99% of YouTube users also are on other social media platforms
Less than 1% of YouTube users aged 16-64 are unique to the platform.
The bottom line? Assume that your fans are also following you on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok and make sure you’re not repeating content or cross-posting: give ‘em something fresh!
Dig into our complete guide to YouTube marketing to start building a truly unique strategy for the platform.
6. YouTube is the world’s second-most visited website
With over 14 billion monthly visits, YouTube clocks in as one of the internet’s heaviest hitters, right after its parent company, Google. “YouTube” also happens to be the third most popular search term on Google.
7. 694,000 hours of video are streamed on YouTube each minute
That’s even more than Netflix, where users stream just 452,000 hours of video.
8. 81% of internet users have used YouTube
So… basically everyone. Even if you’re not creating regular content on the site, it’s worth having a presence here on one of the world’s most popular digital hubs in some capacity.
Ready to build your brand on YouTube? Here’s how to increase your YouTube subscribers and promote your YouTube channel.
9. 22% of YouTube users are accessing the site via mobile
While the majority of YouTube’s audience is watching videos via their computer, a big chunk of users are coming to the platform via their phones. Marketers would be wise to make sure content is optimized for a great viewing experience on even the tiniest of screens.
10. Mobile users visit twice as many pages on YouTube as desktop users
Score another one for the mobile crew. With an average of 4.63 pages visited via the YouTube app versus only 2.84 pages per visit on the desktop, mobile users clearly are lingerers who can’t get enough of that ‘Tube.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Optimize! For! Mobile!
11. Users spend almost 24 hours each month on the YouTube mobile app
Android users across the globe spend on average 23.7 hours each month using the YouTube app on their phones. It’s another great data point to inspire mobile optimization for your content.
12. Gaming content thrives on YouTube
Okay, maybe this isn’t a “stat” per se, but it’s a fact you and your brand should be aware of. In 2021, many of the most popular videos featured gaming; as YouTube put it in their year-end trend report, “Gaming used to be a subculture, but with 2.9 billion people expected to play video games by the end of this year, today it’s clearly pop culture.”
Minecraft is still going strong, it turns out, and even Lil Nas X got in on the gaming trend, digitally performing in a Roblox video last year.
13. Sports viewership on YouTube is expected to reach 90 million by 2025
While live events like the Superbowl still attract plenty of viewers, there’s been a general shift in how sport content is consumed… and YouTube is at the forefront of that shift.
“This jump highlights how quickly content consumption is shifting to become more digital,” Google reports.
14. YouTube Shorts receive 15 billion daily views
YouTube launched a new “Shorts” format to Indian audiences in 2020 — videos that max out at 60 seconds — and rolled out the feature to 100 countries worldwide by the following summer. Today, with more than 15 billion daily views, Shorts have proven to be a massive hit, demonstrating that viewers are craving short-and-sweet content, wherever they’re consuming video. (Watch your back, TikTok!)
15. 92% of internet users watch some kind of video content online each week
Video is an incredibly popular tool for entertainment and education, and the people of the world wide web obviously can’t get enough, with 91.9% of users aged 16 to 64 reporting that they watch some sort of video content every single week.
If your social media marketing plan doesn’t involve video at this point… what are you waiting for? Check out our guide to social video strategy here.