How Many People Use YouTube? (2025)
Updated · Jul 30, 2025
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Editor’s Choice
- How Many Users Does YouTube Have In 2024?
- How Many Users Does YouTube Have In The Leading Countries?
- Top Countries By YouTube Audience (As of February 2025)
- Most Viewed YouTube Channels By Monthly Views
- Most Subscribed YouTube Channels
- Most Popular YouTube Channels Ranked By Number of Subscribers
- YouTube User Demographics
- YouTube Income Demographics
- YouTube By The Money And Trends
- Conclusion
Introduction
How Many People Use YouTube?: YouTube is one of the most popular websites in the world and offers the largest platform for video streaming today. For educational purposes, entertainment, news, or product reviews, YouTube has become the go-to for billions of users around the globe.
In 2024, just how many people use YouTube? We will examine the latest YouTube statistical data for 2024 in terms of total users, demographics, country-wise statistics, consumption patterns, and usage of the platform for business, education, and entertainment.
Editor’s Choice
- YouTube clocked 933.39 million users per month in 2024, growing at a rate of 7.5% from 2023.
- The user count is expected to touch 1 billion by 2026, but growth will be slower.
- India stands as the country with the biggest YouTube audience, having 491 million users, trailed by the U.S. (253 million) and Brazil (144 million).
- YouTube Premium and Music had, as of 2024, 100 million paid subscribers.
- Wiz Khalifa Music was the best-viewed channel of January 2025, with 6 billion views.
- In 2025, MrBeast became the most-subscribed YouTuber with 343 million subscribers, overtaking T-Series.
- In January 2024, YouTube application revenues were US$28 million in the United States and US$19 million in Japan, respectively.
- In 2024, under the advertisement category, YouTube revenue can be accounted for at US$36.1 billion, which is around 13.66% of Google’s total revenue.
- The age group with the largest percentage of users watching YouTube is 25 to 34, accounting for 21.7% of users, followed by 35 to 44, with 18.5% of users.
- Globally, 54.3% of users are male; in the U.S., there are more female users on YouTube than males, at 51.2%.
- YouTube usage is most prevalent in the U.S. for those with high incomes, at 90%, and those with college degrees, at 89%.
How Many Users Does YouTube Have In 2024?
(Reference: oberlo.com)
- According to new statistics, the users of YouTube, defined as the usual person who uses this platform at least once each month, have been continuously increasing year after year.
- It is expected that the monthly YouTube users in 2024 shall reach 933.39 million, forming a 7.5% growth on the previous year (2023).
- One of the largest spikes happened in the year 2021, as more than 100 million users were added to YouTube in a single year. That gave an increase of 16.5%, from 608.64 million to 709.1 million users.
- The sharp peak was more or less because of the COVID-19 pandemic, wherein more people started to use the internet and social media.
- Going by forecasts, YouTube’s user base will continue to grow:
- 2025: 996.4 million users (+6.8%)
- 2026: 1.05 billion users (+5.1%) – meaning the crossing of the billion mark for the very first time
- 2027: 1.09 billion users (+4.4%)
- 2028: 1.13 billion users (+3.5%)
- 2029: 1.17 billion users (+3%)
- An estimated average yearly growth rate for 2025 to 2029 will be 4%, less than that of the average growth of 11.3% seen between 2020 and 2024.
How Many Users Does YouTube Have In The Leading Countries?
(Reference: statista.com)
Top Countries By YouTube Audience (As of February 2025)
- India had the largest YouTube audience in the world as of February 2025, with some 491 million users actively engaging with the platform.
- India, thus, emerged as a clear leader in terms of user base. Other ranked countries were:
- United States: Around 253 million users
- Brazil: Around 144 million users
- United Kingdom: Around 54.8 million users
YouTube Paid Subscribers, 2024
- The platform also saw the greatest growth in premium services in 2024.
- Across its YouTube Music and YouTube Premium services, the platform crossed its declared landmark of 100 million paid subscribers.
YouTube App Revenues by Country (January 2024)
- YouTube app revenues in January 2024 were US$28 million in the United States.
- US$19 million in Japan.
Most Viewed YouTube Channels By Monthly Views
Most-Viewed YouTube Channels (As of January 2025)
- Music and kids’ content continued to dominate YouTube viewership charts in January 2025.
- Wiz Khalifa’s Music Channel took the crown with total views in excess of 6 billion.
- Wow Kidz followed close with over 5 billion views for the latter recorded month of October.
- T-Series, the biggest Indian label for music, was third with 2.72 billion views, although holding the No. 1 position throughout 2021 and 2022.
(Reference: statista.com)
Most Subscribed YouTube Channels
- T-Series still had a staggering 229 million subscribers, leading the world as the most subscribed.
- PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg), now having fallen to seventh with 111 million subscribers, was formerly the most subscribed individual creator.
- MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) overtook PewDiePie in November 2022 to become one of the biggest stars of YouTube.
Top Gaming Creators On YouTube
- PewDiePie remained the most subscribed gaming creator on the platform as of June 2022.
- Next on the list was Fernanfloo with 45 million subscribers, a Salvadorian gaming YouTuber.
Average Time Spent On YouTube
- Users spent an average of 48 minutes and 42 seconds on YouTube per day in 2024.
- This is 1 minute 12 seconds more than in the previous 2023, when daily watch time was about 47 minutes and 30 seconds.
- Moving further back, users in 2019 would have spent only 39 minutes and 42 seconds on the platform on a daily basis.
Most Popular YouTube Channels Ranked By Number of Subscribers
Most-Subscribed YouTuber (January 2025)
- January 2025 saw MrBeast become the most-subscribed YouTuber, with a staggering 343 million subscribers.
- He displaced T-Series, a popular Indian music channel that had stayed atop the list for quite a few years, which had 284 million+ subscribers at the same time.
(Reference: statista.com)
Massive Growth Of YouTube Since Its Launch
- YouTube has really grown and changed all along since its inception in 2005.
- By the time 2006 rolled in, the platform was taking in around 100 million views per day on its videos, with more than 65,000 videos uploaded daily.
- In February of 2022, monitoring an upload rate of more than 500 hours of video every minute was simply so wonderful to think of when compared to February of 2010, with the far lesser 24 hours per minute.
Power Of YouTube Advertising
- YouTube is not just popular-it’s profitable.
- In Q1 2024, YouTube ad revenues crossed the figure of US$8 billion.
- Through the YouTube Partner Program, creators receive a percentage of the revenue generated from advertisements displayed on their videos.
Loyal Fans And YouTube Celebrities
- The preference of followers for their favourite creators is so strong that they would watch new videos again and again from the same source.
- The power of loyalty thus propelled many YouTubers toward digital celebrity status, where big brand deals and endorsements awaited them.
- While a handful have ventured into mainstream entertainment, the bulk of the top creators still produce revenue-building top-line numbers in their own right within the YouTube ecosystem.
YouTube User Demographics
Demographics of the YouTube Audience According to Age
- YouTube players likely have an array of age groups spread across them, but predominantly, they belong to the 25 to 44 range.
- To be precise, 39.5% of the users are aged 25 to 44, thereby indicating that young to middle-aged adults constitute the primary user base of the platform.
- Set forth further:
- 21.7% belong to the age group of 25 to 34
- 18.5% belong to the age group of 35 to 44
- Period 15.8% comprised of users aged 18 to 24 on YouTube. Interestingly, a good chunk of the users are 19.4% above the 55-year mark.
| Age Group |
Share of YouTube Users
|
| 18 to 24 | 15.8% |
| 25 to 34 | 21.7% |
| 35 to 44 | 18.5% |
| 45 to 54 | 14.0% |
| 55-64 | 9.9% |
| 65+ | 9.5% |
(Source: demandsage.com)
YouTube Gender Demographics
- Globally, YouTube tends to attract a slightly higher male audience, as 54.3% of its user base is male and only 45.7% female, indicating a rather slight gender gap.
- Such near-parity in numbers means the content on YouTube appeals fairly equally to males and females.
- The matter gets complicated when we look at the other side of the gender divide: in America, 51.2% of women operate YouTube accounts, while 48.8% are male.
YouTube Location Demographics
- In America, the adults living in urban centres have the maximum potential to use YouTube.
- In these cities, the usage is as high as 84%, 81% in suburban areas, and 74% in rural communities.
- Globally, India houses the highest number of YouTube users, followed by the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico.
- On a global scale, India leads with the highest number of YouTube users, followed by the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico.
YouTube Income Demographics
- Income levels govern the use of YouTube in the U.S. High-income earners favour using this medium, with 90% of Americans in the US$75,000-plus bracket admitting to being users.
- The use graduates downward slightly in the middle-income groups: 83% earning US$30,000 to US$49,999, and 79% earning US$50,000 to US$74,999.
- Those earning less than US$30,000 a year show an even lower use of YouTube, registering 75%.
YouTube Education Demographics
- There is an unmistakable correlation between educational attainment and YouTube usage in the USA.
- Among U.S. adults, 70% with a high school education or less use YouTube, and 86% of those with some college education are users.
- 89% of individuals with a college degree or higher use the platform.
YouTube By The Money And Trends
Countries With The Highest YouTube Penetration
- The United Arab Emirates has entered the league of countries where around 94% of internet users actively make use of YouTube.
- By 2025, Saudi Arabia would have eclipsed that figure to enjoy a platform penetration level of 95.8%, and Israel’s rate stood at 93.3%, meaning these two nations head the pair in terms of platform reach against population.
YouTube Revenue and Monetisation (2024)
- In 2024, the United States topped the charts in YouTube in-app purchases with over US$53 million in revenue generated in the month of December alone; Japan came in somewhere behind at US$17 million.
- In terms of advertising revenue, YouTube accounted for roughly 13.66% of Google’s share for 2024, working out to a number of US$36.1 billion.
- In essence, Google bought YouTube in November 2006 for stock shares of US$1.65 billion. At that time, it was considered a great risk to make such an investment.
YouTube Content Moderation
- During the second quarter of 2024, almost 8.4 million videos were removed from YouTube, mostly flagged by automated systems for content policy enforcement.
App Downloads: YouTube vs Competitors
- In 2024, TikTok was the most downloaded video app worldwide, with an estimated 875.6 million downloads.
- YouTube followed with 165.2 million app downloads, just slightly higher than Netflix, which saw 164.8 million downloads.
- There was also great growth in 2024 for the YouTube Kids app, where downloads increased from 123 million in 2023 to 145 million in 2024.
Most-Watched YouTube Channels: January 2025
- Wiz Khalifa’s Music channel ranked as the most viewed channel with an astounding 6 billion views in January 2025.
- Coming next were Wow Kidz with 5 billion views and T-Series with 2.72 billion views.
Paid Subscriber Growth for YouTube:
- The number of YouTube Premium subscribers grows dramatically.
- From 50 million subscribers in 2021, 100 million subscriptions were recorded by February 2024.
Growth of Influencer Marketing
- As a scale, by the end of 2024, the global industry value stood at an all-time high of US$24 billion.
- This growth has been accelerated largely by YouTube and similar platforms.
Conclusion
In 2024, with over 2.7 billion users, billions upon billions of hours of watch time, and tens of billions of dollars from advertising and creator wages, it is clear to most that YouTube has grown past just a simple video platform into a digital ecosystem. Whatever might be your understanding: creator, brand, business owner, educator, or simple active viewer, YouTube has become the core activity of internet entertainment.
FAQ.
As of 2024, YouTube has 933.39 million monthly active users worldwide, an increase of 7.5% over the previous year. This constant growth marks an increase of 53.4% since 2020, when it had 608.64 million users.
India has the largest YouTube audience, with nearly 491 million users as of February 2025, followed by the United States with 253 million users and Brazil in third place with 144 million.
MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) became the most-subscribed YouTuber of all time in January 2025, overtaking T-Series with 343 million subscribers. Wiz Khalifa’s music channel was the most viewed channel in January 2025 with 6 billion views, followed by Wow Kidz with 5 billion views and T-Series with 2.72 billion.
In terms of YouTube users worldwide, the largest percentage is aged 25 to 34, constituting 21.7%, followed by the 35 to 44 age group with 18.5%. The percentage of males among all YouTube users globally accounts for 54.3%, whereas in the U.S., females stand a little higher than males at 51.2%. In the U.S., YouTube sees a 90% usage from high-income earners and around 89% usage from college-educated individuals.
YouTube generated US$36.1 billion from advertising in 2024, amounting to about 13.66% of total income for Google. Monetisation via ads, YouTube Partner Program, and influencer marketing (which is estimated to reach US$24 billion globally by 2024) has made YouTube one of the prime economic engines in the digital media scenario.
Maitrayee Dey has a background in Electrical Engineering and has worked in various technical roles before transitioning to writing. Specializing in technology and Artificial Intelligence, she has served as an Academic Research Analyst and Freelance Writer, particularly focusing on education and healthcare in Australia. Maitrayee's lifelong passions for writing and painting led her to pursue a full-time writing career. She is also the creator of a cooking YouTube channel, where she shares her culinary adventures. At Smartphone Thoughts, Maitrayee brings her expertise in technology to provide in-depth smartphone reviews and app-related statistics, making complex topics easy to understand for all readers.
