14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube is the biggest video site in the world, everyone knows that. However, few people would guess or know which is the second largest. According to comScore data, it's the Chinese site Youku.com, though it's quite far behind YouTube in terms of videos streamed.
Overall, 1.2 billion people watched an online video in October, many of them on YouTube. Google's video site accounted for 43.8 percent of all videos streamed that month.
"Nearly 1.2 billion people age 15 and older watched 201.4 billion videos online globally during October 2011. Google Sites, driven by YouTube.com, ranked as the top video destination with nearly 88.3 billion videos viewed on the property worldwide during the month," the comScore report read.
"China-based Youku, Inc. was the second largest video property globally with 4.6 billion videos viewed in October (2.3 percent global share), followed by VEVO which accounted for nearly 3.7 billion videos (1.8 percent share). YouTube is an important channel for Vevo, with over 97 percent of Vevo videos viewed on the company’s YouTube channel," it said.
Facebook came in at number four globally, in terms of videos streamed. The social network accounted for 1.3 percent of the global market. In fifth place came the Japanese video site Dwango.
If there is one thing that the data indicates, it's that YouTube is a force to be reckoned with and it has absolutely no comparable competitors. What's more, this won't change for years to come.
The only conceivable competitor, at this stage, seems Facebook, but it's hard to imagine it catching up to YouTube unless it puts a huge amount of effort into it.
Of course, there's little incentive for Facebook or anyone else to catch up to YouTube. Google's video site may still not be profitable. While its ad revenue is significant, only three or four times smaller than the entire Facebook, its costs are very high as well.