Share
YouTube has cemented its dominance on the web, overtaking the popularity of Instagram and Facebook for the first time for ad revenue share on the mobile web.
According to a new report from Statista, the Alphabet-owned video-sharing site accounts for 37 percent of the mobile web on both desktop and mobile worldwide. That’s up from a 16.6 percent market share last year.
At the same time, there’s a four percent gap between YouTube and Facebook for mobile traffic share.
In the United States, Facebook takes first place with 47.7 percent of the mobile web on desktop and mobile, down from 53.7 percent last year. Meanwhile, YouTube is just 8.2 percent behind on 39.2 percent.
Looking at the top five mobile web platforms on mobile, Alphabet is also first with 63.1 percent of traffic, with Facebook falling to 16.8 percent of traffic and Apple iOS ahead on 16.1 percent. Instagram follows in fourth place on 11.6 percent.
The rise of Instagram isn’t surprising, however, with the company’s original app now raking in more revenue than Google-owned YouTube. In 2017, Instagram made up 16 percent of digital ad spend across all sites and apps. That compares to 12 percent last year and 8 percent in 2016.
The new ranking can be partly attributed to a slight drop in traffic share from Facebook and Google to Facebook and Instagram.
In the US, Facebook accounted for 25.1 percent of mobile web traffic share, down from 26.6 percent last year, and 11.1 percent in 2016. Meanwhile, Google’s share of traffic fell from 16.3 percent last year, to 14.1 percent in 2018.
As you’d expect, Pew Research recently pointed out the latest video-sharing site has certainly gained its popularity since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, boosted by an injection of political advertising from President Donald Trump and related issues. Although it may not be all bad news for YouTube as Trump reportedly blocked high-profile YouTube creators on Thursday, April 19.
The new study also found that YouTube’s rise in popularity came as usage of services like Facebook continued to fall. Facebook’s share dropped from 50.4 percent in 2018 to 49.5 percent, while Instagram’s share dropped from 20.7 percent to 18.5 percent.
Although it still finds time to stream cat videos, we do know that Instagram deleted 29 posts containing profane, pornographic, or defamatory language in 2018. That number is likely to continue to rise as Instagram rolls out tighter controls in the lead-up to the app’s first anniversary next month.
Last month the social network announced that it is banning posts that contain terrorism and violence in places where people are either affected or deemed vulnerable. Posts containing hate speech will no longer be viewed if they do not include a generic u2018in case you missed it’ link that will be likely to be seen by users that have since seen the original content.