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YouTube Fuels 13% Growth in US Online Video Viewing

Internet users in the US viewed a record-setting 14.3 billion online videos during December 2008, representing an increase of 13% vs. November 2008, according to data from comScore Video Metrix service.

YouTube, which had the highest number of video viewers by an overwhelming margin, also led the growth charge, accounting for 49% of the incremental gain in videos viewed vs. the previous month.

YouTube Videos Viewed Most

Google Sites once again ranks as the top US video property, with 5.9 billion videos viewed (41% online video market share), with YouTube.com accounting for more than 99% of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media rankes second with 445 million videos (3.1%), followed by Yahoo Sites with 330 million (2.3%) and Viacom Digital with 291 million (2.0%). Hulu continues its growth trajectory, climbing 6% vs. November to 241 million videos viewed.

Google Sites Surpasses 100 Million Viewers

Nearly 150 million US Internet users watched an average of 96 videos per viewer in December. Google Sites surpassed 100 million online video viewers during the month, representing two out of every three internet users who watched video. Fox Interactive ranked second with 56.9 million viewers, followed by Yahoo Sites (42.8 million) and AOL LLC (31.5 million).

Other December 2008 Video Metrix findings:

• 78.5 percent of the total US Internet audience viewed online video.
• The average online video viewer watched 309 minutes - or more than 5 hours – of video.
• 98.9 million viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (59.2 videos per viewer).
• 48.7 million viewers watched 367 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 3.2 minutes.
• The duration of the average online video viewed at Hulu was 10.1 minutes, higher than any other video property in the top ten.