Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know how YouTube is the #1 destination for streaming video content. But did you know that it’s also the second most organically visited site in the US and ranks first organically worldwide?
As of 2020, more than 2 Billion users tune in to YouTube every month and consume more than 5 billion videos every day! This makes it a channel that you just can’t look away from if you are looking to market your brand to an online audience.
Hence, we’ve put together this list of up-to-date YouTube statistics that you should definitely take a look at if you’re planning to leverage the platform this year. And if you're already leveraging the platform and want to double down on videos for your brand, you should definitely sign up for a free account on InVideo so that you can get access to over 5000 templates ready-to-use templates, a library of over 8million stock assets, and a robust online editor to make your video creation process easier.
Not just that, we’ve also created a super helpful infographic that you can feel free to download and use in your blogs/posts. All we ask for in return is that you share the link for this article as the source.
1. Top YouTube Statistics
1. YouTube ranks second in the most visited sites organically in the US and first when the same is charted globally (Ahrefs)
2. 1 billion hours of YouTube videos are watched daily (YouTube Press)
3. YouTube has 2 billion active users every month and over 30 million daily users (YouTube Press)
4. There are 38 million active channels on YouTube of which 15 million are content creators and 22,000 of them have crossed 1 million subscribers. (Tubics)
5. YouTube’s highest concurrent views record is set at 2.3 million from when SpaceX went live to launch the Falcon Heavy Rocket (The Verge)
6. More than 70 percent of viewership happens on its mobile apps (YouTube Press)
7. 90% of digital consumers in the US use YouTube – making it the most popular choice for watching online videos (Oberlo)
8. 70% of what people watch on YouTube is recommended by its algorithm (HootSuite)
9. 500 hours of content is uploaded every minute, as of 2019 (Statista)
10. 9000+ partners on YouTube have a content ID – which includes network broadcasters, movie and recording studios. Content ID is an automated and scalable system that allows copyright owners to identify the YouTube videos that they own – ensuring their creative rights. (YouTube Press)
11. Only 9% of small businesses have their own Youtube channel (Brandwatch)
12. Those who see a TrueView ad are reportedly 10 times more likely to take the action prompted in the ad than the viewer would be on their own (Think with Google)
13. Users who watch at least 30 seconds of a YouTube ad are 23 times more likely to visit or subscribe to the brand’s channel (Think with Google)
2. YouTube statistics: viewer + usage
14. Of the total percentage of YouTube users, 45% are female and 55% are male. (Data Reportal)
15. 73% of US adults use YouTube. 78% of US male adults and 68% female adults use YouTube(Pew Research, 2019)
16. As of the last quarter, 77% of the US internet users in the age 15-35 use YouTube. (Statista)
17. Globally, mobile YouTube videos reach more 18-19-year-olds as compared to any television network. (Think with Google)
18. The top 3 countries that use YouTube are the US [16.4%], India [9.2%], and Japan [4.8%] (Alexa)
19. In terms of geographical distribution in the US – 77% of urban settlers, 74% of suburban settlers, and 64% of rural settlers use YouTube (Pew Research, 2019)
20. YouTube has more than 100 local versions around the world which allows you to navigate the platform in over 80 different languages (YouTube Press)
21. 67% of the videos published on YouTube by popular channels are in other languages, while only 28% are in English. (Pew Research Center)
22. In 2020, 94% of Indian YouTube users learned to do things by themselves by watching YouTube videos (YouTube Trends)
23. 81% of US parents use YouTube to find content – entertaining and educational – for their children, making it a huge potential market that you can tap by creating engaging educational videos using the thousands of templates available on InVideo. (Brandwatch)
24. More than 70 percent of watch time on YouTube comes from mobile devices (Sprout Social)
25. 47% YouTube users said that watching online videos helped them cope with ongoing problems in their lives (Ipsos Mori+YouTube)
26. There has been a 39% increase in users watching YouTube on their TV screens (Sprout Social, 2019) with 250 million hours of video content being watched per day on TV screens alone (Variety, 2019)
27. The average time spent on YouTube daily is 17 minutes 31 seconds (Alexa)
28. YouTube is the second most preferred content for millennials to consume online video content after Netflix (HootSuite)
29. The top two reasons viewers watch YouTube are ‘to relax’ and ‘for entertainment’ during prime time (Think with Google)
30. YouTube users are 3 times more likely to watch online video tutorials than reading instructions and you can easily leverage this by creating engaging tutorial videos using over 5,000 customizable templates available on InVideo. (Think with Google)
31. YouTube mobile users pay 2X more attention to what they’re watching, as compared to those watching television. 7 out of 10 people also default to horizontal viewing when they’re consuming videos on their phone. (Think with Google)
32. In 2020 alone, 70% of people used YouTube to watch online coverage of live events (Ipsos Mori+YouTube)
33. In The most active 10% of channels with 250,000 subscribers were responsible for uploading 70% of the content. Among all of these videos, the most popular 10% made up for 79% of all views (Pew Research Center)
3. YouTube Video Statistics
34. The first YouTube video ever posted was Jawed Karim’s (founder) Me at the Zoo on 23rd April 2005
35. ‘BTS,’ ‘pewdiepie,’ ‘ASMR,’ ‘Billie Eilish,’ and ‘baby shark’ are the top 5 keyword searches globally on YouTube (Ahrefs)
36. ‘Pewdiepie,’ ‘ASMR,’ ‘music,’ ‘markiplier,’ and ‘old town road’ are the top 5 keyword searches on YouTube in the US (Ahrefs)
37. 20% of the top 100 YouTube searches in the US are Music related (Ahrefs)
38. K-Pop band BTS get a monthly average of over 16 million searches worldwide, which is more than 6 searches per second (Ahrefs)
39. ‘Baby Shark Dance’ by Pinkfong became the most viewed YouTube video on YouTube as of January 2022. It has over 7.8 billion views, making ‘Despacito’ by Louis Fonzi and Daddy Yankee the second most viewed video on YouTube at over 7.1 billion views as of January 2022 (YouTube Trends)
40. YouTube’s most disliked video is their own YouTube Rewind 2018 with 18 million thumbs down, as of January 2022 (YouTube)
41. YouTube astoundingly has 4.5 million searches for YouTube (Ahrefs)
42. 68.2% of first-page YouTube videos results are of HD quality and their average length is 14 minutes and 50 seconds (Backlinko)
Source: Backlinko
43. The number of comments, likes, shares, and views on your video has a strong correlation with its higher ranking (Backlinko)
44. In the last two years, watch-time on YouTube has grown for videos with titles that include these words:
- Shop with me (10x)
- Does it work (12x)
- Everything you need to know (2x)
(Think with Google, 2018)
45. Most YouTube users are looking to watch content on things they’re passionate about, and if that video features a celebrity or a famous influencer, they are 3x more likely to watch it (Think with Google)
46. YouTube users are also 1.6x more likely to pick a video with better production value if it is relevant to their interests (Think with Google)
47. 7.78 million videos were removed from YouTube globally only in the third quarter of 2020 because they violated the community guidelines of the platform. Of this, 481,721 videos were removed by flags from non-automated flagging systems (when viewers manually flag an inappropriate video) (Statista)
Source: Statista
48. 26% of adults in the US get news from YouTube. 51% of these news consumers on YouTube are looking for opinions and social commentary while the other 48% are looking for information and facts (Pew Research)
49. The word “review” in the title of videos made them fetch more than 50,000 years of watch-time on mobile devices alone [Jan-Jun 2015 vs Jan-Jun 2017] (Think with Google)
50. 20% of the top 100 searches in YouTube are music-related. Billie Eilish is the most popular with over 2 million searches in a month (Ahrefs)
51. 52% of the top 100 searches in YouTube are for a YouTube personality or channel – like PewDiePie, James Charles, and Joe Rogan (Ahrefs)
52. In 2020, 100 billion hours of gaming content was consumed globally. It includes watch-hours from some of the biggest gaming live events and charity fundraisers organized by gaming channels – like the Call of Duty Warzone Tournament (YouTube)
53. YouTube had more than 1 billion views related to ‘chess’ in 2020 (YouTube Trends)
54. Videos with ‘Witchcraft 101’ in their search title got over 3 million views in 2020 (YouTube Trends)
55. Daily live streams on YouTube grew by 45% in total in 2020 (YouTube Trends)
56. 58% of YouTube users are open to watching content made by creators of any age (YouTube Trends)
57. VTuber (a virtual YouTuber that uses a digital avataar using computer graphics) views grew by more than 1.5 billion per month by October 2020 since January 2016 (YouTube Trends)
58. 47% of viewers are open to consuming VTuber content, i.e, content delivered by created characters who are fictional or virtual (YouTube Trends)
4. YouTube Channel Statistics
59. T-Series (India) has the most channel subscribers at 169 million, followed by PewDiePie (Sweden) at 108 million subscribers (Business of Apps)
60. Ryan Kaji, a 9-year-old content creator and 2020’s highest-paid YouTuber has an income of $29.5 million. His channel Ryan’s World has 28.3 million subscribers (The Guardian)
61. Lego is the most popular brand channel on YouTube at 11.5 million subscribers (as of Jan 2022)
62. In the beauty industry alone, 60% of video views on YouTube come from influencer content, 39% from brands, and only 1% from publisher content (Statista, 2018)
Source: Statista
63. Globally, YouTubers can make an average of $3 – $5 for every 1000 video views. However, making money on YouTube depends on a variety of factors like the number of views your video receives, ad quality, video length, number of clicks an ad receives, etc. (Mint Life)
64. The number of channels that earn a six-figure income by creating content on YouTube grows at a rate of 40% year on year (YouTube Press)
65. The number of channels with more than 1 million subscribers grew by more than 65% year on year (YouTube Press)
66. 9000+ partners on YouTube have a content ID – which includes network broadcasters, movie and recording studios. Content ID is an automated and scalable system that allows copyright owners to identify the YouTube videos that they own – ensuring their creative rights. (YouTube Press)
67. 9% of small businesses have their own Youtube channel (Merch Dope)
68. There is a 95% increase in new channels that are build an audience on YouTube in 2o2o (YouTube Trends)
5. YouTube Marketing and Ad Statistics
69. YouTube ranks as the second popular platform, after Facebook, for brands to post their online videos (Buffer, 2019)
70. 71% of B2B marketers use video as a part of their marketing mix and 53% use YouTube as their preferred platform (Sprout Social)
71. 50% of marketers invest in creating online video content for YouTube (PPC Hero, 2019)
72. 90% of people across the globe said that they discover new brands and products on YouTube (Think with Google, 2018)
73. YouTube is also the second most important platform for influencer marketing after Instagram (MediaKix, 2019)
74. In a study conducted from January 2017-2018, there was a 70% increase in the number of YouTube users who subscribed to and engaged with content created by influencers, every day, year on year (Think with Google)
75. In contrast to television viewers who can multitask and are 2x more likely to switch between ads, viewers on YouTube are more focused on the video and are 50% less likely to skip ads (Ipsos 2017)
76. 29% of marketers voted for pre-roll skippable video ads on YouTube as the most effective ad format (Sprout Social) 
77. Globally, 40% of shoppers said that they purchased products that they had discovered on YouTube (Think with Google, 2018)
78. 2 out of 3 buyers have said that they watch YouTube videos to get ideas and inspiration before making purchasing decisions (Think with Google, 2018)
79. In contrast to television viewers who can multitask and are 2x more likely to switch between ads, viewers on YouTube are more focused on the video and are 50% less likely to skip ads (Ipsos 2017)
80. The watch-time for shopping-related videos on YouTube in the US has grown more than 5X in the last two years, between July 2016 – June 2018 (Think with Google, 2018)
81. As compared to television ads that get only 45% of audience attention, YouTube ads garner audience attention (Ipsos 2017)
82. YouTube’s third-quarter advertising revenues in 2020 was USD 5.04 billion – which is a 32% year over year increase (Statista)
Source: Statista
83. YouTube generates 6% of Google’s ad revenues (HootSuite)
Why don’t more businesses use YouTube and how you can do that?
Despite YouTube being the most visited site in the world and the second most visited site in the US, only 9% of small businesses in the US are using it to market their products and services. The biggest reason for this is the greater barrier to entry on YouTube as compared to social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
In order to consistently produce high-quality videos on YouTube, which is a requirement if you want to grow your brand using the platform, you need to put in a lot of time, effort, and resources. There’s also a bigger learning curve as well as higher competition with more and more people entering the space.
Thankfully, you can mitigate some of these issues – namely the time, effort, and resources it takes to create a video – with InVideo, which has been designed to simplify the video editing process to help you churn out engaging video content quickly and easily. You can leverage a library of 5,000 templates and over 8 million stock assets (videos, images, and music) to create customized YouTube videos for your brand. And the super-intuitive cloud-based editor allows you to edit videos from any system even if you’re a complete beginner. The best part is that you can get started for free and upgrade for as low as $15/month to access premium features.
Summing Up
If you’ve found evidence to get started with YT as a marketing channel for your brand, here’s a ready-reckoner for all things YouTube Equipment to get you on the road. And if you’re already leveraging YouTube and are thinking of doubling down on it this year, you’d want to check out our exhaustive guide on YouTube video ideas that comes with 200+ ideas across more than 20 categories.
Found this YouTube statistics article helpful? Please do share it with your friends and peers looking to get started with YouTube.
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