YouTube has had an inspiring journey since its humble beginnings as a platform to share homemade videos. It is now one of the most visited websites, with 31.5% of the world’s population using the platform. But how big is YouTube?
YouTube is a big shot for several reasons. Here are some data to show how big the platform is:
1. User base – 2.5 billion global users.
2. Net worth – $183 billion.
3. Web traffic – Over 80 billion visits per year.
4. Global reach – Available in 100 countries and 80 languages.
5. Viewership – 1 billion hours of content daily.
This post shows how big YouTube is based on its user base, revenue, viewership, content, and global reach.
YouTube History
Did you know that YouTube was started by three ex-PayPal employees? That’s right.
In 2005, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim started YouTube. Their initial goal was to make YouTube a platform where users could share their homemade videos.
As more people joined the site and shared content, it became popular. By the end of the inaugural year, YouTube had an average of 30,000 daily visitors.
Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion. It has since become the second most visited website after its parent website, Google.
It also shifted from a place for homemade videos to a global platform where businesses, production companies, and professionals upload videos.
How Big Is YouTube Today?
We will look at it in several aspects to help you understand how much of a big deal the video-sharing platform is. These include its user base, global reach, content, viewership, and revenue.
User Base
The user base is an obvious standard when determining a website’s popularity. In terms of user base, YouTube is a big social media platform.
It has an estimated user base of 2.5 billion users. This number represents logged-in users. More users watch videos without signing in, which makes it even bigger.
As for the daily users, YouTube boasts up to 112 million users every day. These are users who log in to watch trending videos, search for answers, and follow up on their favorite YouTube stars.
Global Reach
Another factor that determines the prominence of a platform or service is its global reach. Is it available in most countries or a part of the Western countries?
YouTube is a global platform available in over 100 countries across the world. Only a few countries have banned YouTube, including China, Iran, North Korea, and Turkmenistan. The service is also localized and accessible in up to 80 languages.
Content
When you think about how big YouTube is, viewing it from a content perspective is common. How many YouTube channels are there? How many videos are uploaded daily?
Well, this quantifier makes YouTube a significant player with at least 114 million active YouTube channels. Creating a YouTube channel is easy; the service permits up to 100 channels per Google account.
Up to 25,000 videos are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Depending on the lengths and nature of these videos, that’s approximately 500 hours of content every minute. At the end of each day, the platform sees an average of 3.7 million new videos uploaded.
Viewership
How many views does YouTube record per day? Which is the most viewed YouTube video? All these are common viewership aspects that determine the size of a website.
YouTube has a competitive viewership, only coming second to Facebook. Users view up to 1 billion hours of content daily.
These views range from daily news, trending videos, music videos, and original content. As for the recently introduced YouTube Shorts, their daily viewership averages at 50 billion views.
Revenue
It’s no secret that YouTube makes some good money. Judging from the amount YouTube stars make through the YouTube Partner Program, the platform is minting billions from ad revenue.
The platform was estimated to have a net worth of $183 billion in the 2022 fiscal year. In 2022 alone, the service made a whopping $29. 2 billion. It is safe to say that YouTube is a big shot regarding revenue.
Wrapping Up
YouTube has grown immensely since its humble beginnings in 2005. It is the second most visited website behind Google and has users in over 100 countries.
This post shows how big the video-sharing platform is based on its user base, global reach, revenue, viewership, and content.
