YouTube by the Numbers: Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts

Company Info

URL: https://www.youtube.com

Founded: February 2005

CEO: Susan Wojcicki

Headquarters: San Bruno, CA

Employees:  10,000+ (Source)

Quick YouTube Statistics

Total Number of Monthly Active YouTube Users:

2+ billion (source) 

Last updated: 30/06/21

Total Number of Daily Active YouTube Users:

122 million (source) 

Last updated: 30/06/21

Average Time Spent Daily on YouTube:

18 minutes (Source)

Last updated: 30/06/21

Total Daily Hours of Video Watched on YouTube:

1 billion hours (Source) 

Last updated: 30/06/21

Total YouTube 2020 revenue: 

$19.7 billion (Source) 

Last updated: 30/06/21

YouTube TV Paying Subscribers:

3 million (source) 

Last updated: 30/06/21

YouTube Premium Paying Subscribers: 

30 million (Source) 

Last updated: 30/06/21

Number of Videos Watched Per Day

1 billion + (source)

Last updated: 30/06/21

Total number of daily YouTube shorts views: 

6.5 billion (Source) 

Last updated: 30/06/21

Hours of Videos uploaded per minute:

500 (source)

Last updated: 30/06/21

YouTube Demographics

• 56% of Global YouTube users are male
• 44% of Global YouTube users are female
• 81% of U.S. adults use YouTube. 
• 82% of U.S. male adults use YouTube. 
• 80% of U.S. female adults use YouTube. 
• 95% of 18-29 year-olds in the U.S. use YouTube
• 91% of 30-49 year-olds in the U.S. use YouTube
• 49% of 65+ year-olds in the U.S. use YouTube
• 89% of YouTube users come from outside the US.
• 51% of YouTube users say they visit the site daily.
• 37% of Millennials aged 18 – 34 are binge-watching YouTube daily.
• YouTube services are available in more than 100 countries

YouTube’s annual number of users 

YouTube Usage Statistics 

• 15.5% of YouTube site traffic comes from the U.S. 
•  More than 70% of YouTube watch time comes from mobile devices. 
•  You can navigate YouTube in a total of 80 different languages. 
•  YouTube is the world’s second-most visited website. 
•  YouTube is the world’s second-most used social platform. 
•  The average visitor to YouTube checks out 8.89 pages per day. 
•  The number of channels with more than one million subscribers grew by more than 65% y/y. 
•  The top genres watched by YouTube customers are comedy (77%), followed by thriller/crime/mystery (60%) 
•  People watched 100 billion hours of gaming on YouTube in 2020 
•  India leads as the country with the highest number of YouTube users at 225 million.  

YouTube Financial Statistics

• YouTube generated $19.7 billion in revenue in 2020, a 30.4% increase year-on-year. 
• YouTube generated $6 billion in revenue in Q1 2021, a 49% increase year-on-year. 
• The number of channels earning five figures per year on YouTube grew more than 50% y/y. 
• The highest-paid YouTube star of 2020 was Ryan Kaji, with $29.5 million in earnings. 
• Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion.
• YouTube video influencers with 500-5k followers charge, on average, $315 per video.
• YouTube video influencers with 500k+ followers charge, on average, $3857 per video.
• Most YouTube channels get paid $0.5 per 1000 video views.
• YouTube pays $18 per 1,000 ad views on average.
• Over the past five years, YouTube paid out over $2 billion to partners with Content ID.

YouTube annual revenue 

YouTube Premium paying subscribers 

YouTube Ad Statistics 

•  YouTube is used by 55% of marketers. 
•  70% of viewers bought from a brand after seeing it on YouTube 
•  As of 2020, YouTube was the fifth most used social media platform for marketers after Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 
•  Apple Inc was the biggest advertiser on YouTube in 2020 having spent $237.15 million. 
•  29% of marketers find that pre-roll skippable YouTube video ads are considered the most effective advertising form on YouTube. 

Fun Facts

• YouTube is the 2nd most visited site in the world.
• YouTube accounts for 25% of total global mobile traffic 
• More than 70% of what people watch on YouTube is determined by its recommendation algorithm.
• The first video was posted in 2005 from the San Diego Zoo.
• Gangnam Style was so popular that it broke YouTube’s video counter.
• By 2025, it’s predicted that 50% of viewers under 32 will not subscribe to the paid TV.
• 20% of users will leave a video if it hasn’t hooked them in the first 10 seconds.
• YouTube provides free space in Los Angeles for anyone with 10,000+ subscribers.
• YouTube is technically the second largest search engine in the world.
• 61.5% of the most popular YouTube videos cannot be viewed in Germany.
• The most viewed video on YouTube is Baby Shark Dance song by Pinkfong with 8.8 billion views. 
• Masha and The Bear – Recipe for disaster (Episode 17) is the most viewed non-music video on YouTube with 4.4 billion views.
• YouTube’s Rewind 2018 video is the most disliked video on YouTube, with 19 million dislikes (and counting)
• YouTube’s live stream of Coachella’s first weekend earned over 82 million live views.
• Justin Bieber’s “Baby” video managed to generate 12 million dislikes (and counting!).
• The most popular YouTube channel, T-Series, has 189 million subscribers. 
• There are more than 37 million YouTube channels out there. 
• There are 9,000+ partners using Content ID, including many major network broadcasters, movie studios and record labels.
• YouTube’s partners have claimed over 800 million videos since Content ID was implemented.
• The first adverts were rolled out in August 2007 
• By March 2013, YouTube saw 1bn monthly active users. 
• The first video to hit one million views on YouTube was a Nike advert featuring Ronaldinho.

YouTube Statistics (Editor’s choice) 

1. YouTube User Statistics 

According to the latest official figures, YouTube has 2+ billion users (YouTube, 2021). The research firm Statista provides further insights that show that the platform boasts of about 2.3 billion active users. 

While the current figures place YouTube’s monthly active users at about 2.3 billion, the actual figures might even be higher. This is because the numbers are calculated per the number of people that actually log in to the website (or app).  

However, there are other ways people watch videos, such as the ability to watch YouTube videos on WhatsApp, which takes YouTube’s reach even higher. 

With such a huge audience, YouTube remains one of the best platforms for your digital marketing efforts. 

2. YouTube Demographics: Geography 

India has the highest number of active YouTube users. At least 225 million people in India regularly access YouTube ‒ that’s approximately 16% of the total population. 

The United States comes second as the country with the most YouTube users, with about 197 million active YouTube users.  

Brazil (83 million), Japan (60 million), and Russia (58 million) take up the next three positions at the countries with the highest number of YouTube users. 

While India leads with the total number of YouTube users, the United States’ usage translates to a much higher proportion of the country.  

81% of the entire U.S adult population uses YouTube (Pew Research, 2021). 

Furthermore, the USA accounts for much of the traffic towards the platform, currently sitting at 15.5%. 

Image Source: Alexa 

YouTube is currently localized in over 100 countries and can be used in 80 different languages (YouTube, 2021). This fact has made it possible for the fast penetration of the platform to other countries globally.  

As of January 2021, Israel was the country with the highest YouTube penetration at nearly 93%. The Netherlands ranked second, as the United Arab Emirates ranked third. African countries Nigeria and Kenya had a YouTube penetration of under 30% (Statista, 2021). 

3. YouTube Demographics: Gender 

56% of YouTube’s total users are male, while 44% are female (Hootsuite/ WeAreSocial, 2021). YouTube’s current reporting structure supports the two genders (male and female) of people between 16 and 64 years. 

Source: Hootsuite 

4. YouTube Demographics: Age 

YouTube’s reports on its usage for those between 16 and 64 years. As of 2021, 82% of all male adults are on YouTube, while 80% of all females access the platform in the U.S. (Pew Research, 2021). 

According to a Q3 2020 report by Statista, users between 15-35 years take up the largest percentage of the total number of YouTube users by age, taking up 77%. 

The younger generation isn’t the only one that use the platform as 1 in 3 baby boomers go on YouTube to learn more about a product or service.  

Besides that, 80% of U.S. parents of children under 11 years old claim that their kids watch YouTube (Pew Research, 2020). 
 

According to the latest Global Web Index report, 44% of Baby Boomers visit YouTube Daily. The same report also points out that 75% of all millennials and 77% of Gen Zs visit the site on a regular (GlobalWebIndex, 2021). 

5. YouTube’s Usage Statistics 

With about 122 million daily active users on YouTube consuming more than a billion hours of video every day, this is one of the most widely used social media platforms (and search engine) in the world (YouTube, 2021). 

On average, users spend 18 minutes on YouTube every day (Alexa, 2021) browsing at least eight different pages on the platform.  

This has all become easier thanks to the variety of content available on the social platform, there being more than 31 million YouTube channels to choose content from.  

6. YouTube’s Popularity among Users 

Besides being the only other major social media platform with over 2 billion users (only Facebook ranks higher), YouTube is the second-most popular social media platform in the world (Statista, 2021). 

 
It is also the second-most popular search engine right after Google, racking up over a billion hours of views every day (YouTube, 2021). In fact, YouTube receives more search queries than other major search engine platforms like Microsoft Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and Ask ‒ combined.  

70% of all YouTube traffic comes from mobile devices (YouTube, 2019). The platform’s popularity makes it easy for a larger audience to reach it, reaching more U.S. mobile content consumers than any other television network. 

7. YouTube’s Popularity among Marketers 

To put it into perspective, the total number of social media users in the world is just a little shy of 4 billion people. YouTube has 2+ billion users, meaning more than 50% of all social media users are on YouTube. 

These figures mean a lot to digital marketers that wish to reach a larger audience. Video content has taken over the world, owing to the latest video marketing statistics. And where best to market your videos than the world’s largest video search engine? 

As of 2020, YouTube was the fifth most used social media platform for marketers after Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. 

Regardless of its high potential, many small business owners in the U.S. are yet to make good use of YouTube, as only 9% of small businesses are on YouTube. However, the platform is quite popular among digital marketers as 55% of marketers use YouTube. 

However, owing to its popularity, it is no surprise that 50.9% of B2B decision-makers use YouTube to research purchases. This makes YouTube outrank the likes of Facebook (48.5%) and LinkedIn (33%) for this purpose.  

YouTube has a high convincing power to buyers, increasing their buying intent, and according to data shared by Google, 70% of viewers bought from a brand after seeing it on YouTube. 

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