As YouTube celebrates 10th anniversary, Hong Kong leads the way in smartphone viewership

Video sharing website YouTube has recorded a 70 per cent year-on-year increase in the amount of video uploaded to the site in Hong Kong and a 50 per cent increase in the time people spend watching videos.

Hong Kong is also leading growth in terms of viewers on mobile devices with 50 per cent of users in the city accessing the service on their smartphones as audiences seek out comedy and news clips while on the move.

“The Hong Kong audience is definitely very diverse, they love a lot of different content,” said Marty Chen, manager of YouTube content partnerships for Hong Kong and Taiwan.

“When we look at what’s popular in Hong Kong, it’s not necessarily locally produced but a lot of content that’s from Taiwan, or the US, is content Cantonese people are familiar with.”

The Google-owned site launched in 2005 with a short clip of one of its founders talking about elephants at San Diego Zoo and has grown to more than 1 billion monthly users. Every minute, 300 hours of video are uploaded to the platform.

Hong Kong is home to two YouTube creators with more than 1 million subscribers, according to Chen.