YouTube dominates desktop browsers when it comes to watching videos, and as Google continues to push its services onto mobile devices it looks like the mobile version is starting to attract more users. During an earnings call recently, the company said that 40 percent of YouTube’s traffic came from mobile in its most recent fiscal quarter, up from 25 percent in 2012 and six percent in 2011.
Who is the YouTube of mobile & tablets? YOUTUBE! We made early bet & now accts for 40% of traffic. Great job @dobry2000 & team!
— Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) October 17, 2013
Former YouTube employee Hunter Walk was quick to celebrate the news, noting that Google’s success in mobile video has been a long time coming. The company first invested in bringing its content to smartphones and tablets back in 2007, coding all videos to work for mobile and pushing a deal with Apple to ensure every iPhone shipped with a YouTube app already running on it.
Even after Apple booted YouTube from its list of pre-installed apps with the release of iOS 6, Google was quick to launch its own free app—an app that’s likely running on most iPhones today. The company continues to dominate on both desktops and mobile devices, while competitors fight it out for a distant second place. It seems all but definite that YouTube will continue to lead the pack for the next year, and it’s just as likely that by then the majority of its traffic will come from mobile, marking a rapid shift that the company smartly prepared for.
