S.Koreans watch YouTube over 40 hours a month

South Koreans spend more than 40 hours per month on YouTube, according to the study on Monday.

Wiseapp·Retail·Goods, the domestic application retail analytics firm said that it has analyzed the changes in usage time of the YouTube app.

According to WiseApp's survey of South Korean users of both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, the two major smartphone operating systems, the YouTube app was used for 111.9 billion minutes in January, the most ever recorded.

This figure represents a more than doubling from 51.9 billion minutes in January 2019.

The average usage time of each YouTube app user has also seen an increase, nearly doubling from 21 hours to 40 hours within the same timeframe.

January marked the first instance where the monthly average user engagement on YouTube surpassed the 40-hour threshold.

The platform's popularity surge is attributed partly to the introduction of YouTube Shorts in July 2021.

This feature, offering a simplified editing process and brief video segments, has been particularly appealing to Generation Z users, those born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.

This growing user engagement enabled YouTube to surpass all other mobile platforms in South Korea in terms of usage by December last year.

Data from igaworks, the country's leading mobile big data firm, indicates that YouTube topped the charts with 45.65 million monthly active users (MAU) in December last year, edging out messaging app KakaoTalk, which had 45.54 million users.

YouTube has maintained its lead as the most-used mobile platform in South Korea for three consecutive months as of February.

Write to Kang-Ho Jang at callme@hankyung.com