YouTube is breaking records as a streaming platform. Recent reports by Variety indicate the video-based platform may now count a total of 2 billion monthly users stemming globally. The company's CEO, Susan Wojciicki, made the announcement last Thursday during a marketing event in New York City. The aforementioned record was reported to be 5% more than last summer's 1.9 billion monthly users watching. The records are interestingly placing YouTube as the potential number one go-to for primetime.
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Moreover, YouTube is seemingly appropriating domination over living-room viewership. Their reported watch time stemming from television screens now total more than 250 million hours daily, based on reports from March 2019. The latter reflects a growth of 39% since the previous numbers garnered less than a year ago. To note, the hours clocked in do not consider YouTube TV and Google's internet pay-TV service. Nevertheless, YouTube is on fire and bringing both advertisers and agencies to consider the platform rather than traditional television.
Plus YouTube scores considerably well with the younger population, between ages 18-49 years old, which is notably the most involved in watching and streaming. And these new statistics may hint at YouTube's competitive edge against top-preferred platform Netflix. Though a series of setbacks keep YouTube in second place with regards to user preference, precisely the inclusion of ads in videos.
