How Many People Use YouTube? [New Data]
Written by Brian Dean
YouTube was officially founded on February 14th, 2005. The first video followed on April 23rd, with co-founder Jawed Karim publishing “Me at the zoo”. The now-legendary 18 seconds of the film has been viewed over 302 million times.
With over 2.49 billion monthly active users, the platform has come a long way. In fact, 47% of all global internet users access YouTube every single month.
This article is a one-stop shop for a variety of YouTube demographic and usage statistics.
Here’s a summary of what you’ll learn:
- YouTube Statistics (Top Picks)
- YouTube Monthly Active Users
- YouTube User Growth
- YouTube Users by Country
- Ranked 2nd: Most Used Social Media Platforms Worldwide
- YouTube User Demographics
- YouTube Usage by Device
- Most-Subscribed YouTube Channels
- Most-Viewed YouTube Videos
- YouTube by the Money
So now let’s dive into the stats.
YouTube Statistics (Top Picks)
- YouTube currently has 2.49 billion users. Up from 2 billion users in 2019.
- 47% of all global internet users access YouTube monthly.
- YouTube’s user count of 2.49 billion places it second on the list of most-used social media platforms. Only Facebook has more users.
- India has the most YouTube users, estimated at 462 million. The United States follows, with 239 million.
- Globally, more women than men use YouTube.
- Quarterly YouTube ad revenue is nearly $8 billion.
- On average, individual creators receive between $1.61-$29.3 per 1000 views.
YouTube Monthly Active Users
Monthly active users is a statistic denoting how many unique visitors YouTube receives in a given month. This figure only measures logged-in users, so the actual numbers may be even higher.
- YouTube has over 2.49 billion monthly active users. Among these, there are more than 80 million paid subscribers, taking into account YouTube’s Premium and Music services.
- Just over a third of the world’s population access YouTube every month.
- 47% of the online global population are YouTube monthly active users.
Sources: DataReportal, YouTube
YouTube User Growth
YouTube currently has 2.49 billion users. Which means close to half of the global online population are YouTube users. So how did the video sharing platform get to this point?
There isn’t any official consolidated data on YouTube’s user growth rate over time, but we can get a reasonable idea by pulling various sources together. Here are some milestones in terms of YouTube’s user growth.
| Year | Users Per Month |
|---|---|
| 2006 | 20 million |
| 2008 | 160 million |
| 2012 | 800 million |
| 2013 | 1 billion |
| 2014 | 1.3 billion |
| 2019 | 2 billion |
| 2021 | 2.29 billion |
| 2022 | 2.52 billion |
| 2023 | 2.49 billion |
YouTube currently ranks as the 2nd most visited website worldwide. The only website to receive more traffic is that of its parent company, Google.
Sources: DataReportal, Semrush, The New York Times, The New Yorker, CNBC, The Mercury News, CNET
YouTube Users by Country
YouTube is localized in over 100 countries. It can also be used in 80 different languages. Clearly, the video sharing platform has become a truly global phenomenon. But how do usage statistics break down by country?
India has the largest YouTube audience. At least 462 million people living in India are YouTube users – that’s around 38.4% of the adult reach rate. The USA comes in second on raw user count, but that translates to a much higher proportion of the country.
Around 77.7% of the entire US population aged 18+ are YouTube users.
Here are the top countries by total estimated number of YouTube users:
| Country | YouTube Users |
|---|---|
| India | 462 million |
| USA | 239 million |
| Brazil | 144 million |
| Indonesia | 139 million |
| Mexico | 83.1 million |
| Japan | 78.6 million |
| Pakistan | 71.7 million |
| Germany | 67.8 million |
| Vietnam | 63 million |
| Philippines | 58.1 million |
| Turkey | 57.5 million |
| UK | 56.2 million |
| France | 50.7 million |
| Egypt | 44.7 million |
| South Korea | 44.3 million |
| Thailand | 44.2 million |
| Italy | 42.8 million |
| Spain | 39.7 million |
| Bangladesh | 33.6 million |
| Canada | 31.9 million |
Sources: YouTube, DataReportal
Ranked 2nd: Most Used Social Media Platforms Worldwide
In 2023, YouTube is ranked second amongst all global social media platforms. Sorted by the number of active users, it is beaten only by Facebook.
TikTok’s ascent to 1.22 billion users occurred in just six years. It took YouTube around nine years to hit the same milestone – so if that meteoric growth continues, we may yet see some movement towards the top of this table.
For context, there are just shy of 4.95 billion active social media users globally. So YouTube is one of just two sites that can claim to have captured at least a 50% share of all social media users.
| Platform | Users |
|---|---|
| 3.03 billion | |
| YouTube | 2.49 billion |
| 2 billion | |
| 2 billion | |
| 1.33 billion | |
| TikTok | 1.22 billion |
| Messenger | 1.04 billion |
| Telegram | 800 million |
| Snapchat | 750 million |
| Douyin | 743 million |
| Kuaishou | 673 million |
| X (Twitter) | 666 million |
| Sina Weibo | 599 million |
| 571 million | |
| 465 million |
Source: DataReportal
YouTube User Demographics
Given that YouTube has 2.49 billion users, it can be safely said that people from a whole range of demographics use the site. But user breakdowns can give an idea of the groups of society where YouTube is the most popular.
YouTube Gender Demographics
51.4% of all adult YouTube users in the USA use female, while the remaining 48.6% are male. But globally more male users use YouTube compared to female users, around 54.4% of YouTube users are male and 45.6% are female.
Any content creators without a specifically gendered target market should therefore be looking to make videos with a relatively even male/female viewer split in mind.
Source: DataReportal
YouTube Age Demographics
More than half (50.6%) of YouTube users are Gen Z and Millennials (born between 1981 and 2012). Only 15% of US YouTube are Baby boomers (1946-1964).
Here’s a detailed breakdown of US users by generation:
| Generation | Share of US YouTube users |
|---|---|
| Gen Z (1997-2012) | 25.1% |
| Millennials (1981-1996) | 25.5% |
| Gen X (1965-1980) | 19.9% |
| Baby Boomers (1946-1964) | 15.0% |
| Other | 14.5% |
Globally, around 54.3% of YouTube users are aged between 18 and 34 years old.
| Age group | Share of global YouTube users |
|---|---|
| 18-24 | 15.5% |
| 25-34 | 21.3% |
| 35-44 | 17.5% |
| 45-54 | 12.5% |
| 55-64 | 9.2% |
| 65+ | 9.2% |
Sources: eMarketer, DataReportal
YouTube Location Demographics
US adults living in urban areas are more likely to use YouTube. 84% of city-dwellers are users, dropping to 81% in suburbia and 74% in rural locations.
Sorted by country, India has the most YouTube users. The USA follows, with Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico next.
Sources: Pew Research Center, DataReportal
YouTube Income Demographics
In the USA, YouTube is most popular among high earners. 90% of those earning $75,000 or more say that they sometimes visit YouTube.
Among Americans with an income of $30,000-$49,999 income, 83% are Youtube users, and dropping to 79% among US adults with an income of between $50,000 and $74,999. That figure drops again for those earning under $30k, with 75% of this group using YouTube.
Source: Pew Research Center
YouTube user education level data
These statistics reveal a correlation between YouTube usage in the USA and higher levels of education.
70% of adults with a high school education or less use the video-sharing platform. This rises to 86% for those with some college education. Among those with more than a college education, 89% use YouTube.
Source: Pew Research Center
YouTube usage by device
In YouTube’s early days, PCs and laptops were the only real viewing options. But the digital landscape has changed hugely since 2005. Smartphones and smart TVs have altered how people interact with the world – and with YouTube specifically.
The YouTube mobile app has over 10 billion downloads on the Google Play store. It is therefore unsurprising that 63% of all views on YouTube come from mobile devices.
To put it in a perspective, desktop computers accounted for only 12% of YouTube views.
Here’s a detailed of breakdown of global YouTube views by device in Q2 2021:
| Device | Share of YouTube video views |
|---|---|
| Mobile | 63% |
| Connected TV/other | 14% |
| Desktop | 12% |
| Tablet | 8% |
| Console | 3% |
With the rising popularity of YouTube Shorts, mobile share likely has increased since then.
Sources: eMarketer, Google Play
Most-Subscribed YouTube Channels
T-Series, India’s largest music label, is the most-subscribed YouTube channel.
Here are the exact subscriber numbers:
| Channel | Subscribers |
|---|---|
| T-Series (music) | 257 million |
| MrBeast (entertainment) | 228 million |
| CocoMelon – Nursery Rhymes (education) | 170 million |
| SET India (entertainment) | 167 million |
| Kids Diana Show (film) | 117 million |
| PewDiePie (entertainment) | 111 million |
| Like Nastya (entertainment) | 111 million |
| Vlad and Niki (entertainment) | 107 million |
| Zee Music Company (music) | 103 million |
| WWE (sports) | 98.8 million |
Source: SocialBlade
Most-Viewed YouTube Videos
Baby Shark Dance is the most viewed YouTube video of all time, reaching over 13.3 billion hits.
The top 10 is dominated by music. It looks like this:
| Video | Views |
|---|---|
| Baby Shark Dance (music, kids) | 13.3 billion |
| Despacito (music) | 8.25 billion |
| Johny Johny Yes Papa (music, kids) | 6.78 billion |
| Bath Song (music, kids) | 6.38 billion |
| Shape of You (music) | 6.07 billion |
| See You Again (music) | 6.01 billion |
| Wheels on the Bus (music, kids) | 5.53 billion |
| Phonic Song with Two Words (music, kids) | 5.47 billion |
| Uptown Funk (music) | 5.02 billion |
| Learning Colors – Colorful Eggs on a Farm (music, kids) | 4.45 billion |
Source: Statista
YouTube by the Money
In November 2006, Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock. At the time, this was considered a hugely risky investment. Now, it earns nearly 5x this in ad revenue – quarterly.
YouTube advertising revenue amounted to $22.31 billion in the first nine months of 2023, a 4.84% year-on-year increase.
YouTube’s ads accounted for a 10.09% share of Alphabet’s overall revenue in the first nine months of 2023.
These figures don’t even include money from subscriptions. YouTube hit 80 million Music and Premium subscribers worldwide. Monthly individual subscription for YouTube Premium in the US costs between $11.99 and $13.99.
Creators who are a part of the Partner Program on YouTube are paid 55% of advertising revenue, YouTube takes 45% cut. Actual earnings among YouTube creators vary significantly, depending on factors such as engagement rate, but as a rough average channel owners can earn between $1.61 and $29.30 for every 1000 video views.
Sources: Investopedia, Alphabet, TechCrunch 1, TechCrunch 1, Business Insider
Conclusion
You made it! That’s the end of my list of YouTube user statistics.
Hopefully, you found these facts and figures informative. Lots of the YouTube stats beyond their press page require some hunting down, but I’ve done my best to put a good selection together in one place.
Now I’d like to hear from you:
Any questions? Or anything you’d like to see added to this YouTube roundup?
Either way, please let me know in the comments below.