MUMBAI: Google’s video sharing site YouTube has achieved the milestone of one billion regular uses every month, as internet and mobile penetration continues to reach new heights across the globe.
Announcing the milestone on its blog, the site said a recent growth in smartphones had helped boost the numbers visiting the site every month.
“If YouTube were a country, we would be the third largest in the world after China and India. Nearly one out of every two people on the internet visits YouTube,” it posted.
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Earlier, social networking site Facebook said it had passed the one billion user mark in September as a level of global penetration that has made its quest for sustained growth more challenging. YouTube now poses a challenge to the social media site to emerge as the largest social media network on the platform.
YouTube’s popularity provides Google with a lucrative channel through which to sell advertising, alongside its core search business. YouTube was launched in 2005 and bought by Google in 2006. Google bought YouTube for $1.76 billion in 2006 when the video site had an estimated 50 million users worldwide.
The milestone marks another step in YouTube’s evolution from a quirky startup launched in 2005 to one of the most influential forces in today’s media landscape.
