Koreans spent more than 100 bn minutes on YouTube in October: Survey

South Koreans spent more than 100 billion minutes on YouTube in October, a survey showed Wednesday.

According to a sample survey of Korean smartphone users conducted by mobile app analytics service Wiseapp Retail Goods on Wednesday, South Koreans spent 104.4 billion minutes on YouTube in October 2023, up 2.6 times from 39.5 billion minutes in 2018.

In particular, for the first time this year to October, there were five months where YouTube usage time exceeded 100 billion minutes, including January (101.5 billion minutes), May (102.2 billion minutes), July (103.3 billion minutes), and August (106.8 billion minutes).

The YouTube usage time of 104.4 billion minutes in October was 3.3 times the amount of time Koreans spent on the country’s top messenger app KakaoTalk (31.9 billion minutes) and 4.7 times the time spent on the country’s top internet portal Naver (22.2 billion minutes).

It is also much higher than the time spent on Instagram (17.2 billion minutes) and TikTok (7.9 billion minutes).

“YouTube has seen a sharp increase in users and usage time during the Covid-19 pandemic, and this trend has continued even after the endemic period,” said an official from Wiseapp Retail Goods. “Short-form content is seen as a major driver behind the increase in time users spend engaged on the platform.”