YouTube Stats: How Many People Use YouTube?

YouTube was officially founded on February 14th, 2005. The first video was posted on April 23rd, with co-founder Jawed Karim publishing “Me at the zoo”. The now-legendary 18 seconds of the film have been viewed over 372 million times.

With over 2.58 billion active users, the platform has come a long way. In fact, 42.8% of all global internet users access YouTube regularly.

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 currently has 2.58 billion users. Up from 2 billion users in 2019.
• 42.8% of all global internet users access YouTube monthly.
• YouTube ranks fourth on the list of most-used social media platforms. Only Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram have more users.
• India has the most YouTube users, estimated at 500 million. The United States follows, with 254 million.
• Globally, more men than women use YouTube.
• On average, individual creators receive between $1.61 to $29.3 per 1,000 views.

YouTube Active Users

According to the latest data, YouTube has 2.58 billion active users as of October 2025. Among these, there are more than 125 million paid subscribers, taking into account YouTube’s Premium and Music services.

Nearly half (42.8%) of internet users worldwide access YouTube.

Sources: DataReportal, YouTube

YouTube User Growth

YouTube currently has 2.58 billion users. This means close to half of the global online population is a YouTube user. 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.

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 500 million people living in India are YouTube users. The USA comes in second.

Here are the top ten countries by total estimated number of YouTube users:

Sources: YouTube, DataReportal

Ranked 4th: Most Used Social Media Platforms Worldwide

In 2025, YouTube is ranked third amongst all global social media platforms. Sorted by the number of active users, it is beaten only by Facebook and WhatsApp.

For context, there are just shy of 5.41 billion active social media users globally. So YouTube is one of just three platforms that can claim to have captured at least a 50% share of all social media users.

Source: DataReportal

YouTube User Demographics

Given that YouTube has 2.58 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

53% of all adult YouTube users are male, while the remaining 47% 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 users are Baby Boomers (1946-1964).

Here’s a detailed breakdown of US users by generation:

Globally, around 56% of YouTube users are aged between 18 and 34 years old.

Sources: eMarketer, DataReportal

YouTube Location Demographics

US adults living in suburban areas are more likely to use YouTube. 84% of those in suburbia are YouTube users, dropping to 85% in urban and 81% in rural locations.

Sorted by country, India has the most YouTube users. The USA follows, with Indonesia, Brazil, 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 $100,000 or more say that they sometimes visit YouTube.

Among Americans with an income of $70,000-$99,999 income, 87% are YouTube users, dropping to 79% among US adults with an income of between $30,000 and $69,999. That figure drops again for those earning under $30k, with 78% 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.

79% of adults with a high school education or less use the video-sharing platform. This rises to 87% for those with some college education. Among those with more than a college education, 90% 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 perspective, desktop computers accounted for only 12% of YouTube views.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of global YouTube views by device in Q2 2021:

According to another more recent report, mobile devices accounted for 69% of YouTube’s total viewership, with only 16% of views coming from TV in 2025 to date.

Sources: eMarketer, Google Play, Tubular Labs

Most-Subscribed YouTube Channels

MrBeast is the most-subscribed YouTube channel with 473 million subscribers to date.

Here is the top 10:

And here are the exact subscriber numbers:

Source: SocialBlade

Most-Viewed YouTube Videos

Baby Shark Dance is the most viewed YouTube video of all time, reaching over 16.22 billion hits.

The top 10 is dominated by music. It looks like this:

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 $18.72 billion in the first six months of 2025, a 11.6% year-on-year increase.

YouTube’s ads accounted for a 10.03% share of Alphabet’s overall revenue in the first six months of 2025.

These figures don’t even include money from subscriptions. YouTube hit 125 million Music and Premium subscribers worldwide. A monthly individual subscription for YouTube Premium in the US costs $13.99.

Creators who are a part of the Partner Program on YouTube are paid 55% of advertising revenue, and YouTube takes a 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 1,000 video views.

Sources: Investopedia, Alphabet, YouTube, TechCrunch, 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.