YouTube Streams a Record 14.6 Billion Videos in May

The online video audience numbers for May have been released by comScore and they paint a familiar picture. It’s been a record month for online video in the US and for YouTube in particular, which broke a couple of its own records in terms of total videos watched and videos per user. The numbers also show that Vevo continues to go strong and Facebook has entered the top 10 online video destinations in the US.

“U.S. Internet users watched nearly 34 billion videos in May, with Google Sites ranking as the top video property with 14.6 billion videos, representing 43.1 percent of all videos viewed online. YouTube accounted for the vast majority of videos viewed at the property. Hulu ranked second with 1.2 billion videos, or 3.5 percent of all online videos viewed. Microsoft Sites ranked third with 642 million (1.9 percent), followed by Vevo with 430 million (1.3 percent) and Viacom Digital with 347 million (1.0 percent),” the announcement read.

In total, 183 million Americans watched at least one online video in May, up from 178 million in the previous month. And it’s not only that more people are watching video online, they’re watching more of it too, on average 185.6 videos per visitor adding up to almost 34 billion videos streamed last month.

Google sites, meaning YouTube, as always, lead the way. 144.6 million Americans watched at least one video on YouTube in May and the average visitor watched 101.2, the largest number for the video site in history. This is the first time YouTube went past the 100 videos mark and it all adds up to 14.6 billion clips watched in the previous month.

Vevo, Google’s joint venture with the major record labels, shows that people do love their music videos and is now the fourth online video property in the US. Meantime, Facebook has squeezed its way into the tenth position and, with viewership numbers rising steadily, the social network may not only be challenging Google in search but in online video as well.