YouTube Statistics 2026: Users, TV Share, Revenue, Shorts
84% of US adults use YouTube, more than any other platform, and about half visit it every day. It is now the biggest thing on American television too, with a record 14.2% of all TV viewing in July 2026. YouTube’s revenue passed $60 billion in 2025 across ads and subscriptions, more than Netflix’s. Shorts average more than 200 billion daily views, though YouTube counts those differently than long videos. And the “500 hours of video uploaded every minute” figure on most YouTube stats pages dates to 2019. Here are the YouTube statistics worth knowing in 2026, each sourced inline with the year noted.
84% of US adults use YouTube
84% of US adults say they use YouTube, the most of any online platform, ahead of Facebook (71%) and Instagram (50%), in a Pew Research Center survey of 5,022 US adults (Pew Research Center, 2025).
About half of US adults visit YouTube at least once a day, and 33% visit several times a day (Pew Research Center, 2025).
Roughly nine in 10 US teens ages 13 to 17 use YouTube, the most of any platform, and about one in five say they are on it almost constantly (Pew Research Center, 2025).
YouTube is 14.2% of all US TV viewing
YouTube took a record 14.2% of all US television viewing in July 2026, the largest share of any media distributor and five points ahead of the next, by Nielsen’s monthly Gauge (Cord Cutters News, 2026). Streaming as a whole reached 49.0%, while cable fell to a record low of 18.7%.
Viewers watch more than 1 billion hours of YouTube on TV screens every day, and for more than half of the 100 most-watched channels, TV is now the main screen (YouTube, 2025).
More than 1 billion people a month watch podcasts on YouTube (YouTube, 2025). More in podcast statistics.
$60 billion in revenue, $40 billion of it from ads
YouTube’s revenue passed $60 billion in 2025 across advertising and subscriptions, the first time Alphabet disclosed the combined figure, against Netflix’s $45.18 billion (MediaPost, 2026).
YouTube’s ad revenue was $40.37 billion in 2025, up 11.7% from $36.1 billion in 2024 (Music Business Worldwide, 2026). Fourth-quarter ad revenue was $11.38 billion.
YouTube Music and Premium reached 125 million subscribers globally, including free trials (YouTube, 2025).
Shorts average 200 billion daily views
YouTube Shorts average more than 200 billion daily views, CEO Neal Mohan said at Cannes Lions (YouTube, 2025). Since March 31, 2025, YouTube counts a Shorts view every time one starts to play or replay, with no minimum watch time (PPC Land, 2025). The figure is not comparable to earlier Shorts counts, or to long-form view counts.
”500 hours uploaded every minute” is a 2019 number
“More than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute” comes from YouTube press events in May 2019 (Tubefilter, archived, 2019). We could not find a newer per-minute figure from YouTube, so the number repeated on 2026 stats pages describes YouTube before Shorts existed.
For other platforms, see social media statistics and Instagram statistics.
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For more, see AI agents for YouTubers and how to connect Claude to YouTube.
FAQ
How many people use YouTube? 84% of US adults use YouTube, the most of any platform (Pew Research Center, 2025), and about nine in 10 US teens.
How much money does YouTube make? More than $60 billion in 2025 across ads and subscriptions, with $40.37 billion from advertising (Alphabet, 2026).
How much of TV viewing is YouTube? A record 14.2% of all US television viewing in July 2026, the most of any media company (Nielsen, 2026).
How many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute? The commonly cited figure is more than 500 hours a minute, which YouTube disclosed in 2019. We could not find a newer official number.
Related: Social Media Statistics · Instagram Statistics · Podcast Statistics · Influencer Marketing Statistics · Advertising Statistics
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