No doubts. YouTube is the largest video platform in the world. As billions of users surf around hours of content uploaded daily, it’s changing daily. The platform’s been a rollercoaster ride of change, and the figures this year are crazy enough to spin your head around—in a good way, of course!
But what does YouTube look like in 2025? How many users does it have? What’s so popular now? Let’s check out all the latest YouTube stats— everything from user growth and watch time to the emergence of AI-driven content.
YouTube Usage Stats
YouTube’s supremacy as the world’s biggest video platform continues in 2025. Billions of users and content creators are driving engagement every second. The platform’s dominance in the video marketing sector despite the shift to short-form videos is worth noting. Have a look at some mind-boggling stats that cement YouTube’s first position:
- YouTube’s user base is more massive than ever before, with an estimate of more than 2.74 billion monthly active users as of February 2025.
- YouTube has a monthly traffic of over 30 Billion.
- YouTube is the second most popular social media platform in the world. Facebook stands first with more than three billion active users.
| Social Media Platform | Active Users (in millions) |
| 3,065 | |
| YouTube | 2,700 |
| 2,000 | |
| 2,000 | |
| TikTok | 1,582 |
| 1,343 | |
| Facebook Messenger | 1,010 |
| Telegram | 900 |
| Snapchat | 800 |
| Douyin | 755 |
- YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world, just behind it’s parent company— Google.
- When it comes to app downloads, YouTube stands as third with 182 million downloads.
- YouTube is the second-most visited page on Wikipedia in 2024.
- YouTube dominates both the social media and streaming sectors of the US. Almost 239 million users are from the US itself. And the platform has over 8.6% share in the country’s streaming market.
- YouTube has established a presence across 100 countries and 80 languages.
- 70% of users trust YouTube.
- Until now, YouTube Kids alone has a total of 144 million downloads.
- YouTube Kids app has more than 35 million active weekly users.
- YouTube Premium has more than 100 million subscribers, comprising paid and trial users. That’s a steady 25% growth from the previous year.
- YouTube Music is the third largest music streaming platform— just behind Spotify and Tencent Music (considering the subscriber base). There are over 80 million YouTube users for the free music platform.
- But when it comes to podcasts, YouTube grabs the first position as it’s favored by 31% of users. Spotify and Apple Podcast stand as the runner-ups with 21% and 12% respectively.
- 30.86% of the entire world population are YouTube users.
- 11% of users just use YouTube and no other social media platforms.
Area Demographics
YouTube attracts audiences from all corners of the world. Yet, certain countries and regions are notable for their enormous user bases as well as activity levels. Let’s take a look at the geographical distribution of YouTube’s viewership:
- India seems to have the most users at 491 million. The United States and Brazil follow with 243 million and 144 million users respectively. Check out the country-wise usage stats:
| Country | User Base |
| India | 491 million |
| United States of America | 243 million |
| Brazil | 144 million |
| Indonesia | 143 million |
| Mexico | 83.6 million |
| Japan | 78.7 million |
| Germany | 65.5 million |
| Vietnam | 62.3 million |
| Philippines | 57.7 million |
| Türkiye | 57.5 million |
- Southern Asia is the most ideal market for YouTube with over 580.1 million users, followed by south-eastern Asia (332.6 million). Northern America comes only at the third position (279.1 million).
- YouTube penetration stands highest in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Over 94% of the country’s population uses YouTube. In addition to that, the country contributes almost 100 million paid subscribers to YouTube Music and YouTube Premium services.
- Israel stands close with over 93.2% penetration. It is interesting to note that despite all figures, the US is still not listed in the top 10 countries with the most YouTube penetration. That means the nation still has a wide unexplored audience base for the platform.
- South Korea secures the first position in mobile engagement with YouTube. Each user opens the app almost 368 times a month, on average.
- 32% of the US population uses YouTube to watch news.
- 62% of users in the US watch YouTube daily.
- English and Spanish are the most popular languages on the platform.
Age & Gender Demographics
YouTube’s viewership cuts across all age groups and genders. That makes it one of the most flexible platforms for advertisers. Here’s a closer examination of who’s active in YouTube:
- The gender split is 45.6% female and 54.4% male users.
- The median age is probably between 35 and 44- a demographic which is likely to have high purchasing power. That makes the platform a premium target for advertisers.
- Here’s a generation-wise breakdown of the YouTube user base:
| Age | Percentage |
| Gen Z (1997-2012) | 15.7% |
| Millennials (1981-1996) | 21.5% |
| Gen X (1965-1980) | 17.9% |
| Baby Boomers (1946-1964) | 15% |
| Other | 14.5% |
- Men between 25 and 34 years account for 12% of the total user base of the platform, whereas there are only 9.7% of females within the same age category.
- At the same time, YouTube is also popular among younger netizens. In the United Kingdom (UK), children and teens spend an average of 66 minutes daily on the platform.
- 80% of people with children under 11 years of age say that the child watches YouTube videos.
- Gen Z users spend 29.3% of their video engagement time on YouTube.
- 60% of Gen Z netizens use YouTube to search for a movie or show that they have just watched.
- 90% of US teens are YouTube users.
- The platform is a favorite choice among older demographics, too. Over 95% of internet users over 55 years of age use YouTube.
User Engagement
Figures once again reinstate the fact that YouTube enjoys one of the most actively engaged audience bases. Check out some stats that verify it:
- 87.35% of YouTube traffic comes from Mobile while just 12.65% is from Desktop devices.
- The engagement rate on YouTube is also witnessing stable growth. It grew to 2.36% in 2024 from 2.1% in the previous year.
- YouTube is the social media platform with the highest user retention. Users spend an average of 7 minutes and 37 seconds in a session, slightly better than TikTok, which comes in the second position, with 5 minutes and 52 seconds.
- 38% of brands use live events to engage with prospects and customers.
- Facebook is the biggest referring social media source of YouTube’s traffic–26.51%. X (formerly Twitter) stands next to it with 24.3%.
- More than 1 billion watch hours come from TV.
- About 122 million users interact daily on the platform.
- On average, each user spends almost 19 minutes daily on the platform.
- A user spends 28 hours on the YouTube App, on average.
- 46% of netizens visit YouTube at least once a month.
Interesting Facts
Have a look at some lesser-known facts about YouTube:
- 87% of the YouTuber user base is educated. Out of this, more than 90% are a college graduate or have higher education qualification.
- 27% of users engage with YouTube for more than 17 hours each week.
- A total of over 5 billion YouTube videos have been shared till now.
- The most searched terms in the YouTube search engine are: BTS, Pewdiepie, and ASMR.
- A YouTuber earns around $18 per 1000 ad videos. Want to know how much your favorite YouTuber is earning? Try out our YouTube money calculator for free.
Ad Stats
YouTube, with its enormous worldwide following, is indeed a main marketing platform for companies. Most users interact with commercials in one form or another— be it skippable or not. Check out what keeps the platform the top choice for most advertisers:
- Total YouTube ad reach accounts for 2.53 billion— 45.5% of the world’s internet user base. Over the last year, it increased by 1.6%.
- Advertising reach stats also follow the same trend as that of the user base. India has the largest YouTube advertising audience, with a total reach of over 491,000,000.
| Country | Total Reach |
| India | 491,000,000 |
| United States of America | 253,000,000 |
| Brazil | 144,000,000 |
| Mexico | 143,000,000 |
| Japan | 83,600,000 |
- Already 54% of marketers are using YouTube. This figure is expected to rise to 59% in the coming years.
- Google states that 70% of users bought a product after seeing it on YouTube.
- 29% of users feel that pre-roll skippable ads are the best ad format.
- Just 7% of users believe that non-skippable ads are effective.
- Tenlira, an AI advertising company under Inuvo, is the top spender of YouTube ads. The company spent over 29.4 million dollars in a year— almost double of Walmart, the second biggest spender.
- Just 9% of small businesses in the US include YouTube in their marketing strategies, which is obviously a concern for the platform.
- 30% of advertisers find it difficult to target the audience through location and engage them.
- The average Revenue Per Mille (RPM) for YouTube Shorts is approximately $0.05.
- YouTube long-form videos have an average RPM of around $3.
- YouTube ads have 54% more view time as compared to other social media ads.
- More than half of the brands (52%) are confident in advertising through YouTube.
- 59% of users believe that YouTube ads work better than traditional television ads.
- When viewers come across a YouTube ad, they are twice more likely to buy.
- YouTube penetrates more than 89% of US families with over $100,000 annual income. That’s a lucrative audience for your product or service.
- YouTube is the third most-used platform for influencer marketing with 33.1% of brands, just below TikTok (68.8%) and Instagram (46.7%).
- The cost of your YouTube influencer marketing campaign mainly depends on the influencer you choose. You can limit the budget between $20 to $200 by choosing nano influencers. Mid-tier influencers can charge from $1,000 to $10,000 whereas mega influencers may ask for above $20,000 per video.
Revenue Stats
Beyond a mere entertainment platform, it’s a financial powerhouse, too. Premium memberships and monetization features for creators have greatly contributed to earnings. Let’s have a look at how the platform performs economically:
- In 2024, YouTube accumulated over $36.1 billion in revenue. That’s a 14.6% steady growth from the previous year.
- YouTube’s ad revenues have seen consistent growth throughout 2024. Have a look at the quarterly performance:
| Quarter (2024) | Revenue |
| Q1 | $7.8 billion |
| Q2 | $8.6 billion |
| Q3 | $8.9 billion |
| Q4 | $10.4 billion |
- $Subscriptions contribute to almost 41% of the total revenue of YouTube—14.5 billion.
- $53 million, approximately 53.82%, of in-app purchase revenue comes from the United States itself. Japan comes second with almost $17 million (16.9%).
- YouTube is a source of income for more than 2 million content creators. Want to make money from YouTube? Buy a Monetized YouTube Channel from us.
- The entire YouTube ecosystem contributes more than $35 billion to US GDP.
- The company generates more than 390,000 jobs in the US alone.
- 6% of Google Ad revenues come from YouTube.
Content Stats
Over the past few years, the content schematics in the platform is changing fastly. Post-covid spike in content creation and the shift of audience interest to short-form videos have really affected the content strategies of YouTube. The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) opened doors to many new opportunities. How do all these changes influence the platform? Let’s check it out:
- YouTube’s extensive content library contains around 3.9 billion videos. Out of this, 826 million are YouTube Shorts.
- A total of more than 2 trillion videos were uploaded to YouTube till now.
- Baby Shark is the most-viewed YouTube video as of now. It tops with 15.47 billion views, almost double that of the second— Despacito with 8.63 billion. Have a look at the top ten most-viewed YouTube videos:
| Video Name | Channel | Views (in Billions) |
| Baby Shark Dance | Pinkfong Kids’ Songs and Stories | 15.47 |
| Despacito | Luis Fonsi | 8.63 |
| Johny Johny Yes Papa | LooLoo Kids | 6.99 |
| Bath Song | Cocomelon | 6.96 |
| Wheels on The Bus | Cocomelon | 6.95 |
| See You Again | Wiz Khalifa | 6.52 |
| Shape of You | Ed Sheeran | 6.39 |
| Phonics Song with Two Words | ChuChu Tv | 6.21 |
| Uptown Funk | Mark Ronson | 5.44 |
| Gangnam Style | PSY | 5.41 |
- It is interesting to note that all are music videos.
- The sensational Gangnam Style video maintained the first position as the most-viewed YouTube video for the longest— 1,689 days (4.6 years).
- “Butter”, the video song by BTS, created history as the fastest video to hit 100 million views. The video took under 24 hours to achieve the milestone.
- There are over 114 million channels.
- A surprising fact is the increase in the platform, with roughly 3.6 million videos uploaded every day, estimated from 720,000 hours of content per day and a 12-minute average video length.
- YouTube videos have an average length of almost 11.7 minutes.
- Every day one billion hours of content is consumed through YouTube.
- More than 500 minutes of video are uploaded every hour on the platform.
- Child safety is the main reason why YouTube removes a video. Around 34% of removed videos on YouTube were due to this reason. 17.1% of removed videos were due to harmful or dangerous content.
- eCommerce videos have an average engagement rate of 0.02%.
- Videos within 7-15 minutes of length have the highest engagement on YouTube.
- 70% of users view YouTube as an opportunity to learn something new.
- 86% of teachers refer to YouTube content before preparing their lesson sessions.
- Over 70% of YouTube views come from recommendations through the algorithm. That’s why it is important to optimize the tags and descriptions before posting.
- YouTube channels with a subscriber base of 100,000 to 1 million have the highest engagement rate— 3.47%.
- “Song” was the most searched keyword on the YouTube search engine. It has a top index rating of 100.
- Most Popular Niches
25% of Views For Entertainment
22% to Others
20% to Music
19% to People
7% Film And Animation
7% Gaming
- The video games niche has the highest engagement on the platform.
YouTube Channel Stats
YouTube has turned out to be one of the most attractive career options among the current youth. As a result, fresh content creators are approaching the platform day by day. Check out some channel-specific stats to motivate your content creation efforts:
- Top YouTube channels by revenue 2024 ($mm)
Channel Revenue ($ million)
MrBeast 85
Matt Rife 50
Dhar Mann 45
Rhett & Link 36
xQc 36
Ryan Kaji 35
Markiplier 32
Mark Rober 25
Alex Cooper 22
Stokes Twins 20
Jacksepticeye 18
Andre Rebelo 17.9
Adam W 15
Jake Paul 13.6
- Mr Beast has the highest number of YouTube Subscribers— 375 million.
- Wiz Khalifa Music is the most-viewed channel with 5.99 billion monthly channel views. Wow Kidz comes second with 5.02 billion monthly channel views.
- 80 channels have more than 50 million subscribers while only 14 channels crossed the 100 million benchmark.
YouTube Shorts Stats
YouTube Shorts was introduced in September 2020 as YouTube’s response to the short-video craze fueled by TikTok. Shorts provided creators with an additional means to connect with audiences at a rapid pace using vertical video of 60 seconds and less. The feature competes strongly with apps such as Instagram Reels and Snapchat Spotlight, generating billions of views every day. Check out some YT Shorts-specific stats:
- Daily, over 70 billion views are generated through YouTube Shorts. That’s a fantastic 40% growth as compared to the previous year.
- YT Shorts have amassed a total of over 5 trillion as of now.
- Channels that post YouTube shorts have 25% more audience retention.
- Creators earn only 45% of total revenue from Shorts. YouTube holds the remaining amount to cover music licensing fees and other platform operations. But when it comes to long-form videos, the revenue-sharing ratio is flipped. Creator gets 55% while the platform retains 45%.
- Ideal YouTube Shorts length is 30-40 seconds.
- 19.4% of YouTube Shorts traffic comes from the US (216 million U.S. users). India stands second with 5.2%.
- You can’t see 40% of YouTube Shorts on Instagram Reels or TikTok.
- “Funny DIY Foot Soap”, a crafts family video, has the highest number of views.
- “Would You Fly to Paris for a Baguette?” YouTube Short by Mr. Beast is the most-liked YouTube video. The Short video has gathered over 54 million likes.
- 72% of YouTube videos are more than 15 seconds in length.
- Google claims that ad campaigns that make use of YT Shorts get 10-20% more conversions per dollar.
Future Trends
The future of YouTube looks so promising. Have a look at some trends that you need to consider while planning future channel strategies:
- The platform’s user base is expected to hit 2.85 billion by the end of 2025.
- Trends tilt in favor of Artificial Intelligence (AI). 60% of users welcome AI-generated content.
- 52% of users, that is more than half, have come across virtual YouTubers, the latest trend in the platform. So, we can see more virtual avatar influencers in various industries in the coming years.
- 60% of the top 100 YouTube live streams (considering viewers) were posted in the past two years. That means the platform is actively promoting live streams, making it a great feature to build reach for your channel.
- By 2025, sports viewers on YouTube will hit 90 million.
Conclusion
The figures ultimately prove YouTube platform is headed in the right direction. No matter what content format you’re comfortable with— be it long-form or short videos— the platform offers many promising opportunities. All you need to do is keep an eye on the changing trends and adapt quickly.
Last but not least, you need the right tools to make the most out of these trends. At LenosTube, we offer many free tools to support emerging content creators. Try them out now!
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!