Over 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month - Full Stats

"Viewership
More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that's almost an hour for every person on Earth
100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
80% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
YouTube is localized in 61 countries and across 61 languages
According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults ages 18-34 than any cable network
Millions of subscriptions happen each day. The number of people subscribing daily is up more than 3x since last year, and the number of daily subscriptions is up more than 4x since last year
YouTube Partner Program
Created in 2007, we now have more than a million creators from over 30 countries around the world earning money from their YouTube videos
Thousands of channels are making six figures a year
Monetization
Thousands of advertisers are using TrueView in-stream and 75% of our in-stream ads are now skippable
We have more than a million advertisers using Google ad platforms, the majority of which are small businesses
Mobile and Devices
Mobile makes up almost 40% of YouTube's global watch time
YouTube is available on hundreds of millions of devices
Content ID
Content ID scans over 400 years of video every day
More than 5,000 partners use Content ID, including major US network broadcasters, movie studios and record labels
We have more than 25 million reference files in our Content ID database; it's among the most comprehensive in the world
Content ID has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for partners"
Source:  YouTube Press Statistics, retrieved 26th August 2014

1.6% of app developers make more revenue than the other 98.4% combined

"A study last month of more than 10,000 app makers by market analysts VisionMobile found that 1.6 per cent of developers make more than the other 98.4 per cent combined. While the research estimates there are almost 3m mobile developers in the world today, more than half make less than $500 per app per month.
“It seems extremely unlikely that the market can sustain anything like the current level of developers for many more years,” it concluded."

Source:  The FT, 19th August 2014, citing data from VisionMobile

From the VisionMobile report, August 2014

"The figures in our Q3 2014 State of the Developer Nation report are once again crystal clear: the vast majority of app developers struggle to make a living. 7 out of 10 don’t earn enough to sustain full-time development (we call them the Have Nothings and Poverty Stricken). That would be over 2 million people, roughly the population of Slovenia. Almost 90% of that record app store revenue will go to just 12% of developers.

While more app store revenues are clearly a good thing for developers, the money is peanuts compared to what Apple makes. In Mobile Megatrends 2014, we showed that Apple captures 80% of the total iOS “ecosystem GDP”, while developers capture less than 15% (including commissioned apps released without any revenue model).

The situation on Android is even worse. Whereas 50% of iOS developers live below the poverty line, the number for Android is 64%. Also for Android, hardware makers capture 80% of ecosystem GDP, while developers are scrambling over the left-overs. Other ecosystems like Windows Phone or Blackberry don’t have the scale to provide viable escape routes.

[...]

Ecosystems can sustain this situation as long as there is supply of developers hoping to get rich. Only 1.6% of developers have an app that earns >$500K per month, but those few big wins will make all the difference for the motivation of the Have Nothings, the Poverty Stricken and the Struggling to keep creating (source). Asking whether developer ecosystems are sustainable is like asking for how long casinos will exist given that most participants lose money. “Indefinitely” would be a safe bet."

Line makes revenues of over $10m a month from Stickers

"Line, the mobile messaging company from Japan, just announced it is making over $10 million (1 billion yen) per month selling stickers, the rich emoticon-like content. And it says the figure is rising each month.
Line’s free messaging service reached 200 million users in June, and is currently at 230 million. More than a messenger, the company defines an industry-wide shift from messaging apps into social platforms.
Its family of 52 apps — which includes games, tools, communication services and photo apps for iOS and Android — have been downloaded more than 290 million times — Line Camera alone has clocked 48 million downloads worldwide.
The company also makes money from other in-app purchases (particularly for games) and by charging for corporate messaging accounts. This month it announced record revenue of $132 million in revenue for Q2 2013 — a very different approach to WhatsApp‘s $0.99 per user per year business."

Source:  The Next Web, 21st August 2014

Shazam has 100m monthly active users

Shazam just breached the 100m monthly active user mark. It has been downloaded to 500 MILLION devices. Proper UK tech success story #shazam
— Nic Fildes (@LovesickHank) August 20, 2014

Earlier - 300m 'users' reported in Feb 2013, which I assume is an earlier version of the 500m number

WhatsApp has 600 million active users

Now serving 600,000,000 monthly active users. Yes, active and registered are very different types of numbers...
— jan koum (@jankoum) August 25, 2014

Earlier - 400m reported on 19th December 2013, so it's growing at 800,000 active users a day, and at approx 5.2% per month
Earlier - 300m reported in early August 2013, so it grew from 300-400 at a rate of 700,000 active users a day, and at approx 7.5% per month

China has 641m internet users

"China's internet users reached 641 million by the end of July 2014, for a penetration rate of 47.4 percent, according to China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC). By the end of June, the country had a total of 632 million internet users, according to data from CNNIC. Internet penetration by the end of June was 46.9 percent."
Source:  Data from CNNIC, reported by TelecomPaper, 25th Agust 2014
Note - earlier, but fuller report from July 2014 here

Smartphone and Tablet penetration by market

Source:  Data from TNS, dated May 2014
You can select and de-select countries to create your own charts

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has raised $15.6m in donations

!As of Monday, August 18, The ALS Association has received $15.6 million in donations compared to $1.8 million during the same time period last year (July 29 to August 18). These donations have come from existing donors and 307,598 new donors to The Association.
The ALS Association’s mission includes providing care services to assist people with ALS and their families through a network of chapters working in communities across the nation and a global research program focused on the discovery of treatments and eventually a cure for the disease. In addition, The Association’s public policy efforts empower people to advance public policies in our nation’s Capital that respond to the needs of people with ALS."

Source:  Press release from ALSA, 18th August 2014

The penetration of Snapchat app among smartphone users in the US

Source:  comScore, 8th August 2014

WeChat has 438m monthly active users

"Chinese web giant Tencent (HKG:0700) has just released its Q2 earnings report. We’ll look at the financials later, but first the number that we all want to see – Tencent’s messaging app, WeChat, is now at 438.2 million monthly active users (MAUs).
Social gaming tied to WeChat and QQ (Tencent’s old MSN-style instant messaging service) generated RMB 3 billion (US$487.4 million) in revenue in Q2.
That newest WeChat MAU figure is up from 396 million in Q1; it’s risen from 236 million at the same period last year.
[...]
For a sense of scale, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has 500 million MAUs. However, Tencent is still not revealing how many active users it has outside of China."

Source:  Tech In Asia, 13th August 2014

63% of Ladbrokes' digital betting during the world cup came via mobile

"UK gambling operator Ladbrokes has identified mobile as “the engine of growth” in its H1 2014 results.
The amount staked on sportsbook betting via mobile grew 105 per cent year-on-year, and made up 46 per cent of digital. During the World Cup this spiked to 63 per cent, as mobile stakings grew over 1,100 per cent."

Source:  Mobile Marketing Magazine, 13th August 2014

Global mobile ad spend nearly doubled to $19.3bn in 2013

"IAB Europe, the U.S. IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence and IHS Technology revealed today their global figures for mobile advertising revenue which soared a massive 92% to €14.6bn ($19.3bn) in 2013 from €7.6bn ($10.1bn) in 2012, confirming the adoption of mobile as an essential element of the marketer’s toolkit.
Mobile display shows the highest growth at 123.4% and mobile search, up 92.1%, flourishes mainly driven by smartphone penetration as affordable data plans fuel location-based search-on-the-go. Messaging, itself up 19.4%, might not be sharing as much robust growth due to migration from operator-owned messaging services (e.g. SMS and MMS) to alternative platforms. Successful messaging innovation, particularly in Asia, reinforces the commonly held industry belief that mobile players need to be ahead of the curve.
Search remains the dominant segment representing 48.9% of the total global mobile advertising revenue in 2013 at €7.1bn ($9.5bn), while display approaches parity with a 41.5% share at €6bn ($8bn), and messaging takes a 9.6% share at €1.4bn ($1.9bn).
The share by region of the global figure of €14.6m ($19.3m) for 2013 is:
• North America: 41.9% (€6,099m / $8,100m)
• Asia-Pacific: 38.9% (€5,666m / $7,525m)
• Europe: 17.3% (€2,519m / $3,346m)
• Middle East & Africa: 1.2% (€170m / $225m)
• Latin America: 0.7% (€109m / $144m)
2013: Global mobile advertising revenue: share by region
Growth year-over-year was strong across the board, led by Latin America, which saw a massive 215% leap over the 2012 figures. North America and Europe also saw major increases
• Latin America – 215%
• North America – 122%
• Europe – 90%
• Asia-Pacific – 69%
• Middle-East and Africa – 45%"
Source:  Press release from IAB Europe, 13th August 2014

'Up to' 23 million active Twitter users are bots which tweet automatically

"Twitter has admitted that as much as 8.5 per cent of its userbase - some 23 million accounts - are bots which automatically ping the site with updates, but the company has also revealed that more human users are seeing ads served on the site than originally thought.
As many as 23 million of Twitter’s 271 million monthly active users are bots, the site has revealed.
In its 10-Q document filed with the US Securities Exchange Commission yesterday (11 August), Twitter revealed a new metric comprised of users that have used third party applications that automatically contact its servers without “any discernible additional user-initiated action”.
Those 23 million accounts could include useful news services, earthquake updates or retailers that automatically update followers of new items in stock, alongside spam accounts. However, Twitter estimates false or spam accounts represent fewer than 5 per cent of its monthly active users.
The new metric is a point of interest to marketers, as it means a large amount of the 271 million active monthly users Twitter reported last month are not real consumers that have the potential to view and interact with their advertising and organic content.
However, Twitter also used its filing to revise upwards the amount of users that can see its ads. In its second quarter earnings Twitter said as many as 14 per cent of its users were using third-party applications to access its service, meaning up to 38 million users were not being served with ads.
Twitter has updated that number to 11 per cent, saying it has now found after “reviewing and refining its processes” that some of those users had in fact accessed its service through owned and operated applications such as Tweetdeck. This means 89 per cent of its total active user base can see ads served on the platform."
Source:  Marketing Week, 12th August 2014

Dollar Shave Club 'is likely to make $60m in revenue in 2014'

"Dollar Shave Club is on pace to do $60 million in sales this year, up from $20 million last year, Mr. Dubin said. Its self-reported 600,000 users amount to around 2% of industry estimates of 36 million male razor cartridge users in the U.S. But Mr. Dubin said he believes Dollar Shave Club has captured 6.2% of the U.S. cartridge market by volume -- something that would give the two-year-old company around a third of the share of Gillette challenger Schick, owned by Energizer Holdings, in the $1.4 billion market for razor cartridges, according to Nielsen data from Deutsche Bank."
Source:  AdAge, 20th May 2014

Twitter users are limited to 2,400 tweets per day

"Current Twitter limits
The current technical limits for accounts are:
Direct messages: 250 per day.
Tweets: 2,400 per day. The daily update limit is further broken down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals. Retweets are counted as Tweets.
Changes to account email: Four per hour.
Following (daily): The technical follow limit is 1,000 per day. Please note that this is a technical account limit only, and there are additional rules prohibiting aggressive following behavior. Details about following limits and prohibited behavior are on the Follow Limits and Best Practices page.
Following (account-based): Once an account is following 2,000 other users, additional follow attempts are limited by account-specific ratios. The Follow Limits and Best Practices page has more information.
These limits include actions from all devices, including web, mobile, phone, API, etc. API requests from all third-party applications are tracked against the hourly API limit. People who use multiple third-party applications with their account will therefore reach the API limit more quickly. For more information on this topic, please see our API Rate Limiting page.
These limits may be temporarily reduced during periods of heavy site usage. In such cases, we will post an update on the Twitter Status blog."
Source:  Twitter Support, retrieved 11th August2014
Note - in Feb 2013 it was only 1,000 tweets per day

Smartphone ownership in the UK by demographic, 2012-2014

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Tablet ownership in the UK by demographic, 2012-2014

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Reach of physical media in the UK by age

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

DVR usage & Time-shifting in the UK, 2007-2013

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
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Sorts of video viewing by device in the UK

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
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Live & time-shifted viewing in the UK, 2008-2014

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Smartphone & Tablet use by age in the UK, 2012-14

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

More than 25% of 16-34s in the UK live in mobile-only households

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
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Daily TV minutes in the UK by age, 2006-2014

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
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Time spent with devices in the UK - All adults vs 16-24s

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Weekly reach of media activities in the UK by time of day

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Average time spent on different media in the UK

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
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Weekly Reach of different media activity in the UK

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
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Proportion of time spent with different media in the UK - All adults and 16-24s

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Time spent with media in the UK by age - with and without simultaneous activity

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

16-24s in the UK have doubled their time spend with media in just four years

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Time spent with media & communications in the UK by time of day

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Knowledge and understanding of new technology in the UK

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

'Digital confidence' in the UK is higher among men than women

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

'Digital confidence' is highest in the UK among 15 year olds

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

Time spent with media in the UK

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

UK household device penetration

Source:  Ofcom's 2014 Communications Market Report, released 7th August 2014
More here

The five most influential figures among Americans aged 13-18 are YouTube stars

"U.S. teenagers are more enamored with YouTube stars than they are the biggest celebrities in film, TV and music.
That’s the surprising result of a survey Variety commissioned in July that found the five most influential figures among Americans ages 13-18 are all YouTube faves, eclipsing mainstream celebs including Jennifer Lawrence and Seth Rogen. The highest-ranking figures were Smosh, the online comedy team of Ian Andrew Hecox and Anthony Padilla, both 26.
Despite having minimal exposure in the mainstream media, another comedy duo, known as the Fine Bros., Benny and Rafi, finished a close second, followed by the Swedish videogamer who has the most subscribers on all of YouTube, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg — otherwise known as PewDiePie. Interestingly, the highest-ranking non-YouTuber is Paul Walker, who tragically died in a car accident late in 2013.
The survey, conducted for Variety by celebrity brand strategist Jeetendr Sehdev, asked 1,500 respondents a battery of questions assessing how 20 well-known personalities stacked up in terms of approachability, authenticity and other criteria considered aspects of their overall influence. Half the 20 were drawn from the English-language personalities with the most subscribers and video views on YouTube, the other half were represented by the celebrities with the highest Q scores among U.S. teens aged 13-17, as of March.
A score was then assigned to each YouTube and mainstream star based on how they fared in respondents’ answers to the questions, and the resulting number was translated to a 100-point scale. The top five — and six of the top 10 — were YouTube stars."

Source:  Variety, 5th August 2014

The top 10 were:

Smosh

The Fine Bros

PewDiePie

KSI

Ryan Higa

Paul Walker

Jennifer Lawrence

Shane Dawson

Katy Perry

Steve Carell

Eight of the top ten smartphone vendors in China are Chinese

"In Q2 2014, the world’s largest smart phone market, mainland China, accounted for 37% of global shipments – some 108.5 million units. Of the top five vendors in China this quarter, all but one were local companies. And perhaps more impressively, that home-grown success continues in the top 10, where eight vendors were Chinese. In little over a year, Xiaomi has risen from being a niche player to become the leading smart phone vendor in the world’s largest market, overtaking Samsung in volume terms in Q2. Xiaomi took a 14% share in China, on the back of 240% year-on-year growth. With Lenovo, Yulong, Huawei, BBK, ZTE, OPPO and K-Touch, the eight Chinese vendors in the top 10 together accounted for a total of 70.7 million units and a 65% market share. Samsung and Apple, the only international vendors in the top 10, together accounted for shipments of 20.0 million units, representing 18% of the overall smart phone market in China."
Source:  Data from Canalys, reported in a press release, 4th August 2014
Note - The full press release has data on other markets too

WeChat has 396m active users

"WeChat monthly active users reached 396 million in more than 200 countries and regions as of this month (July 2014), WeChat disclosed yesterday at an event.
Public accounts, service accounts and subscription accounts, have reached 5.8 million since the public account system was launched in August, with 15,000 added daily. Sogou, the search service developer Tencent has a stake in, had indexed more than 4 million public accounts and their contents as of June 2014 since WeChat allowed it to, according to its latest earnings report released earlier this week."
Source:  Technode, 31st July 2014
Earlier - 355m in Q4 2013, reported March 2014

The biggest news sources from Facebook traffic

Source:  Data from NewsWhip, July 2014