Report: YouTube overtakes Netflix in daily viewing time
June 3, 2026
Digital i has released its report, The YouTube Era: 2025 in Review, revealing continued growth in daily viewing on the Google-owned video portal, as well as a shift in consumption from mobile devices to TV screens, and how audience engagement compares with Netflix.
The report identifies the demographics and markets powering YouTube’s growth; highlights the channels making the biggest global impact; and how major Hollywood brands are performing on the platform. The findings are based on Digital i’s measurement across 20 international markets in 2024 and 2025.
Key takeaways include:
– YouTube is pulling ahead for daily audience attention. Average daily usage per account rose from 87.2 to 99.1 minutes from 2024 to 2025, while Netflix dropped from 100.5 to 93.4 minutes.
– Netflix remains a major force on YouTube. Its official channel had the highest reach (78.2 million unique accounts) of any channel in 2025.
– YouTube’s shift to the living room continued. TV’s share of viewing time rose from 28 per cent to 35 per cent between January 2024 and December 2025, while mobile fell from 35 per cent to 31 per cent.
– Gen-Z remained YouTube’s most engaged age group, averaging 111 minutes per day. Growth, however, was strongest among men aged 55-64, whose viewing increased 15 per cent year-on-year. Women of all ages also increased their daily average YouTube usage.
– South Koreans used YouTube the most per day (161.5 minutes), while France saw the biggest growth in daily usage (up 33.6 per cent) from 2024 to 2025.
“YouTube’s evolution from a social video service into a dominant global attention platform is one of the defining media shifts of the decade,” commented Matt Ross, Digital i’s chief analytics officer. “Our data shows audiences increasingly treating YouTube not as social media, but as a primary entertainment destination.”
Digital i measures YouTube and Netflix across territories including: the UK, the US, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, France, Italy, Germany and Spain.
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