People today hardly need an introduction to YouTube as the little red-colored play button has become a part of our lives. With a reach of 2.5 billion people, YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google (obviously). Not only do people go there for leisure, education, listening to songs, or scrolling shorts, but also it is actively used by advertisers around the world to promote their products. Brands use the platform to connect with their customers.
Here we have some interesting YouTube statistics that will trigger your interest and provide insights into what happens over YouTube.
User Demographics
Region and Country
The most populated country in the world is sure to have the highest number of users of YouTube. India (462 million) has almost double the users of The US (239 million) which ranks second.
Interestingly, all the other countries in the list, except the top four, have less than 100 million users. India has more users than the combined users of the bottom 7 countries in the list.
Remember this stat, this will be significant when reflecting on some interesting facts later in this article.
No doubt, YouTube is quite popular in Asia as most of its audience comes from this continent. The reason can also be the high population of Asian countries. American regions come second with most users using YouTube from North America. Eastern Africa accounts for the lowest (9.4 million) users of YouTube.
If views were votes, we’d be living in the United Federation of YouTube, with India as president and the US as vice. Everyone else is a very enthusiastic ambassador!
Gender
As was relevant from the statistics of other social platforms, the dominant user base is males which for YouTube make up 54.4 percent of its total users.
The chart above shows the distribution of YouTube users based on their age and gender. As seen, most of them fall in the sweet group of 25-34. The second dominant group is the one of 35-44 with 17.5% of users belonging to it. Moreover, it’s interesting to note that the popularity of the platform does not fade much in older people as was observed with other social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and others.
YouTube’s popularity has transcended generations with all; GenZ, Millennials, GenX, Baby Boomers, and even the Silent Ones, if alive, are enjoying watching videos.
But still, as the ages go up, it looks like people think, “Been there, watched that,” and the YouTube guest list gets shorter. It’s all fun and games until real life says, “You’ve got mail… and responsibilities!”
Education, Income, and Community
When looking at the different domains under which US adults fall, some amusing things are observed. No matter your education, income, or even community, people everywhere have that red-colored play button on their phones and are happily consuming its content.
Revenue
Ad Revenue
Although some QoQ fluctuations can be observed in the above chart, overall on a YoY basis the revenue has increased. If we observe closely, we can find a unique pattern. The revenue was lowest in the first quarter and then it went up steadily. As Q4 ended and we entered a new year, the revenue again went down for Q1 and the same story continued.
Are brands advertising more during the holiday season, it can be given a thought? Moreover, YouTube ended its Q4 of 2023 with a whopping $9.2 Billion in its pockets.
YouTube’s ad revenue graph is soaring up like my grandma’s sourdough starter—just when you think it’s peaked, it puffs up even more! If these bars were a mountain range, advertisers would need oxygen tanks to climb that Q4 2023 peak!
Subscribers Growth
YouTube launched its premium service in 2014 to allow people to stream ad-free music. It took 7 years for YouTube to have 50 million subscribers and just another 2 years to double them. In Feb 2024, according to YouTube, it crossed the benchmark of 100 million premium holders.
Subscribers Revenue
YouTube’s premium service is climbing the ladder to success like a determined spider, spinning its web of profits. By 2025, it might just be waving from the top floor of the $4 billion skyscraper.
Traffic Referrals
Here is a list of the Top 10 most visited websites by organic traffic in Feb 2024 according to ahrefs. YouTube is clearly on top, for obvious reasons, with 4.8 Billion monthly visits. The same article also covers a list of top websites in the US wherein, youtube.com ranks second with 956 million monthly visits.
Seems like everyone’s glued to their screens for videos and fact-checking! Not surprising, right? But what’s really funny is how chatting and online shopping sneak in there too. It’s like a digital juggling act – work, play, and adding to cart, all in one online adventure!
Google, in 2023, witnessed quite diverse searches across its search engine globally. The most popular searches, except Google, are; you, youtube, weather, and others. The list includes popular sites that we are all familiar with like FB, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
Also some essential things of life like weather and news. Probably “you” here stands for those searching for youtube, however, not completing the spelling.
Note that although Google publishes its annual trends report, the absolute search volumes are not published. The metric “index” denotes the popularity of a query. It shows the relative search volume for each query compared with the search volume of the top query.
Top Sources
More than 80% of traffic to youtube.com comes from direct search and organic search accounts for nearly 12% of the traffic. Others like social, mail, display, referrals, and paid search have almost negligible contributions compared to the top two.
Top categories
When the incoming traffic is categorized based on interests and preferences, video games contribute almost 16% of the traffic. Other users also land on YouTube inquiring about computer electronics, news, and programming software.
The white slice of the pie chart, indicating others, is the largest part conveying that there are much more diverse people in this world and YouTube has something for everyone.
Top Social Networks
Among the competitors of YouTube, i.e. other social networks, the maximum traffic comes from Facebook (27.32%), followed by Twitter and Reddit. Instagram’s name on the list is quite obvious, seeing its massive popularity, however, it’s VKontakte, the Russian social network, that steals everyone’s eye.
Ads Overview
Comparison
Thirty-one percent of the global population can be reached by advertising on YouTube and that is a really massive number. This further increases to 37% when only the adult population is considered.
The other metrics, all being greater than 30%, also highlight the immense power and potential of this social media giant in connecting the world.
Ad Reach
The bars from Jan 2022 to Jan 2024 are of almost the same height suggesting no major changes in the numbers. This gives rise to two questions; first, has YouTube already reached its upper limit of users?, and second, is there any maximum limit number for social media platforms?
Adult Reach Rate
Remember the first graph? It displayed the undisputed dominance of India, however, here the results are surprising.
Even with such a huge user base, the ad reach in India is just 38.4%. UAE has the highest adult reach followed by Israel, the UK, and others. This suggests that YouTube has the lowest adult reach rate in India than elsewhere.
Here we have only included the top countries but the original list (source at end) compares several countries. There, all countries have a potential reach greater than 52% except India, Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria. India is just above the global average of 37.3 percent.
Comparison With Other Platforms
Compared to other social channels, YouTube ads perform well and are only behind Facebook. Although Instagram and TikTok are relatively new platforms, they have performed well in having a dedicated user base.
Four of the platforms here belong to Meta which tells us the reason for the company’s dominance in the social media market.
Time Spent
People in 2023 have consumed a lot of video content, spending billions of hours hooked up to their phones and searching for just the right content they need.
In January 2024, thirty-six percent of the total time was spent on streaming services and another 28% on watching videos through cables.
Also, among streaming services, YouTube had the highest share with users spending 8.6 percent of time on the platform. Only Netflix had good competition with YouTube while others were far too behind such as Prime Video (just 2.8%).
According to the same report by Nielsen, YouTube was the top streaming platform by watch-time for a straight 12 months. Again, in the whole year, only Netflix was near YouTube, others seem to be struggling to get users’ time.
In the US, a person spent nearly 35 minutes on YouTube per day in 2023 and this number is projected to increase to 36 min and 37 min in 2024 and 2025 respectively. Although readers may see that the number has increased only by 3 minutes from 2022, in this highly fast-paced and competitive world, capturing someone’s 1 minute is also precious.
Americans’ daily YouTube minutes are creeping up each year like someone slowly turning up the volume during their favorite song. By 2025, might as well say, “Just one more video” is becoming everyone’s unofficial mantra!
Globally, compared with other social media platforms, YouTube ranks second with engaging users for almost 27 hours per month. Although young, TikTok surpasses some established platforms like Facebook and Instagram, primarily because of its viral short-form videos.
Messenger, used for texting, is far behind its competitors which have video content rolling in their apps.
Gen Z
Among US teens, almost 15 percent are constantly on TikTok, Snapchat or YouTube. Only 3% say they are always on Facebook which is the lowest among all others.
When asked if they have ever used the select app or site, 93 % agreed to be familiar with YouTube. Only around 60% of accepted have ever been on TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram.
This is still higher compared to just 33%, a third of YouTube’s, for Facebook.
Gamers
YouTube has become the go-to platform for gamers too with 60% considering it as the preferred platform for information and content. There are plenty of online streamers on YouTube and trailers of popular games, their reviews and updates, all reach to YouTube first.
YouTube and Facebook are the go-to hangouts for gamers, maybe because that’s where you find epic wins and those “oops” moments that make you glad it’s not you.
Influencers
It is predicted that by 2024, the influencer marketing market will be 24 Billion dollars, a huge leap from a mere $1.7 Billion in 2016. According to the same report, around 60% of respondents plan to increase their budget. Thus, brands want to see social platforms running their ads featuring influencers.
Of all the channels, brands consider TikTok as their desired platform with it being preferred by around 70% of respondents. YouTube ranks at third and although it is preferred by half of those going over TikTok, it still beats Facebook, Twitter and others.
For Agencies
Running campaigns on YouTube is no child’s play. With your ad under the scrutiny of billions of users, a single ad can improve or disrupt your brand. The above table describes what brands consider the most important thing when they want an agency to run a YouTube campaign for them.
Agencies should always keep brand safety as their priority with no unsafe content in the advertisements. Next, as they are investing money, they like to see the results in terms of performance, reach, efficiency of the campaign, and others.
When targeting adults through YouTube campaigns, brands do not want to promote content that will be unsafe and also that is Made-for-Kids. Moreover, collaborating with any controversial creator and touching hot political pans are also a big NO for brands.
Top On YouTube
Searches
YouTube has become another popular search engine for people looking for all the different kinds of videos. When looking at the top queries on YouTube, SONG is the most popular query. In this list, most queries are songs-related only (GANA is Hindi for songs), reflecting how popular the platform is among music lovers.
People play a global game of musical hide-and-seek with YouTube and it frantically searches through its vast library, going, “I know it’s here somewhere!” Meanwhile, do people just type “MOVIE” and let fate decide their cinematic destiny?
Top Channels By Subscribers
T-Series is currently the most subscribed channel on YouTube globally with around 257 million subscribers. MrBeast is the only other channel after T-Series to cross the 200 million benchmark. Channels targeting children also have a huge subscriber list with several of them being in the top 10.
* Full channel name is Cocomelon – Nursery Rhymes, Sony Entertainment Television India, Kids Diana Show, and Zee Music Company.
Top Channels By Views
When looking at the top channels based on total views, T-Series is again the winner with around 240 Billion views of its content. Interestingly, there are some channels like Sony Sab, Zee TV, and Colors TV that were not in the previous list but made here. People love watching their videos, however they do not subscribe to them.
When it comes to views, T-Series is like “Catch me if you can” with a lead so big, even the binoculars are saying “That’s a stretch!”
All-Time Most Viewed Music Videos
| Rank | Artist – Song Title | Views |
| 1 | Luis Fonsi – Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee | 8.3B |
| 2 | Ed Sheeran – Shape of You | 6.2B |
| 3 | Wiz Khalifa – See You Again ft. Charlie Puth | 6.1B |
| 4 | Mark Ronson – Uptown Funk ft. Bruno Mars | 5.1B |
| 5 | PSY – GANGNAM STYLE | 5.0B |
| 6 | El Chombo – Dame Tu Cosita feat. Cutty Ranks | 4.5B |
| 7 | Crazy Frog – Axel F | 4.3B |
| 8 | Maroon 5 – Sugar | 4.0B |
| 9 | OneRepublic – Counting Stars | 3.9B |
| 10 | Katy Perry – Roar | 3.9B |
We all can recall the Despacito craze when the video was released. People everywhere were under its spell with them murmuring the song whether or not they knew the exact lyrics. No doubt, Despacito is the most-viewed music video of all time with more than 8 billion views. All songs in the list are quite familiar to all of us and probably at some point, we have listened to these songs in a loop.
All-Time Fastest Music Videos to One Billion Views
The list shows the time it took for music videos to reach the 1 Billion benchmark and the list tops with Hello by Adele. On average it took nearly 3 and a half months for these videos to reach 1 Billion audience.
All-Time Top 24 Hour Music Debuts
BTS and Blackpink surely dominate this list of most views in 24 hours for a music video debut. BTS clutch a win with their song Butter getting more than 108 million views in a single day. Blackpink makes an entry in this list with Pink Venom getting 90.4 million views on their debut day.
Seeing the charts, it seems BTS has got a secret recipe: “1 part charisma, 2 parts killer choreography, and a dash of worldwide domination.”
All-Time Most Subscribed Official Artist Channel
| Rank | Artist | Subscribers |
| 1 | BLACKPINK | 93.1M |
| 2 | BANGTANTV | 77.5M |
| 3 | Justin Bieber | 72.6M |
| 4 | EminemMusic | 59.0M |
| 5 | Marshmello | 56.9M |
| 6 | Taylor Swift | 56.7M |
| 7 | Ed Sheeran | 54.2M |
| 8 | Ariana Grande | 53.5M |
| 9 | Billie Eilish | 49.2M |
| 10 | Bad Bunny | 47.6M |
The official channels of Blackpink and BTS (Bangtan TV) are the top two most subscribed artists in the world. Several popular artists are featured in this list including Justin Bieber, Rap God Eminem, Marshmallow, and others.
Community Report
YouTube constantly monitors the content uploaded over its platform to ensure that it falls under its Community Guidelines in its effort to maintain a safe and vibrant community. However, we all know that despite rules people are going to upload violating content and that is where enforcement comes into the picture.
YouTube regularly published data on the channels, videos, and other things removed from its platform in its transparency report. We compiled the data and prepared charts to give an idea of the changes with time.
Channels Removed
When a YouTube channel is terminated all of its videos are also removed. In the last quarter of 2023, YouTube removed around 20 million channels which is the largest it has ever since Q3 2018.
Videos Removed
The highest videos were removed in the second quarter of 2020 with the number being more than 11 million. This was the phase when Corona distress was at its peak and this thing will be observed in the subsequent charts as well. In the last quarter of 2023, 9 million videos were removed.
Note that these numbers include automated flagging.
Videos Removed by Views
YouTube tries to ensure that any violative videos are removed before they are viewed by mass. The above chart breaks down the removed videos by the views they got before being removed. We can see that YouTube works hard in removing videos before they get even a single view. However, still some might be left out and those are removed before they get more than 10 views.
Note that from Q3 2023, YouTube has included other categories, other than the existing two, namely 11-100, 101-1000, 1001-10000, and >10000 views.
Videos Removed by Country
YouTube also publishes data on the videos removed by the country/region of upload. Here we have compared the videos removed in India and The US over the years. For other countries, data is available here.
Starting with 2019, videos uploaded from the US were high (3.24 million) compared to India (just 0.32 million). However, with each year an interesting change was observed as removed videos from the US kept on going down whereas those from India kept on climbing.
Comments Removed
There are billions of comments posted in the comment section each year and YouTube ensures that those violating its guidelines and likely to be spam are removed. The graph shows that the platform has worked well in this regard and removed around 1.2 billion in the last quarter itself.
Extremism Videos Removed
This content includes content created by terrorist organizations, promotes terrorism, or glorifies terrorist acts. There was an exceptionally high amount of such content removed in Q2 2020. In other quarters it was less than 100 thousand.
Conclusion
These YouTube statistics and other analytics will help marketers and brands learn about the demographics of people on the platform and how they can align their campaigns to increase their visibility and target the right audience to turn them into potential buyers.
Moreover, we learned of the efforts YouTube is making to protect its community of Billions and make the platform a respectable place for everyone.
Sources
1 Digital 2024 – We Are Social USA Pg 300
2 YouTube Users, Stats, Data, Trends, and More — DataReportal – Global Digital Insights
3 Digital 2024 – We Are Social USA Pg 294
4 Digital 2024 – We Are Social USA Pg 296
5 Demographics of Social Media Users and Adoption in the United States | Pew Research Center
7 https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-music-premium-100-million-subscribers/
10 Digital 2024 – We Are Social USA Pg 94
11, 12, 13 similarweb YouTube analysis
14 Digital 2024 – We Are Social USA Pg 294
15 Digital 2024 – We Are Social USA Pg 295
16 Digital 2024 – We Are Social USA Pg 297
17 https://influencermarketinghub.com/social-media-marketing-benchmark-report/#toc-14
20 https://www.emarketer.com/content/youtube-was-top-streamer-12-months-row-cementing-its-dominance
21 https://influencermarketinghub.com/social-media-marketing-benchmark-report/#toc-14
23 https://influencermarketinghub.com/social-media-marketing-benchmark-report/
24, 25 https://influencermarketinghub.com/ebooks/Influencer_Marketing_Benchmark_Report_2024.pdf
28, 29, 30 Digital 2024 – We Are Social USA Pg 302, 303, 304 respectively
31, 32, 33, 34 YouTube Culture & Trends – Data and Cultural Analysis for You
35 to 40 YouTube Community Guidelines enforcement – Google Transparency Report
Debbie Moran is a Digital marketing strategist with 5+ years of experience producing advertising for brands and helping leaders showcase their brand to the correct audience. She has been a part of RecurPost since 2019 and handles all the activities required to grow our brand’s online presence.