![YouTube App Statistics [2026]: Users, Revenue, Downloads](/static/7b5e9a24318d93cfd8d125979ca1ea0d/8ff83/youtube.webp)
YouTube has been the default video app on mobile for over a decade. The numbers behind it in 2026 explain why nothing has come close to displacing it.
This article covers the latest YouTube statistics: downloads, revenue, DAU, MAU, retention, engagement, and how the app actually makes money.
Key YouTube Statistics For 2026
The headline numbers:
| Lifetime Downloads | 2.0 Billion |
| Lifetime Revenue (IAP) | $9.9 Billion |
| Average DAU | 1.2 Billion |
| Average MAU | 1.6 Billion |
| ARPDAU | <$0.01 |
| D30 Retention | 2.0% |
Data source: AppMagic.
Is YouTube Still Popular In 2026?
YouTube is more popular than ever where it counts. Daily users sit above 1.3 billion. Monthly revenue peaked in August 2025 and is essentially holding flat.
Where the curve has bent is downloads. Monthly install volume peaked back in December 2021 at over 25 million and has cooled to roughly 9 million.
That’s not a popularity problem. It’s a saturation signal. There’s almost no one left to install YouTube for the first time.
| Metric | Peak | Current | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Downloads | 25.2M | 9.2M | -64% |
| Monthly Revenue | $206M | $196M | -5% |
| MAU (M) | 2.1B | 1.7B | -19% |
Data source: AppMagic. Current data uses the latest complete month available.
YouTube App Overview
| Developer | Google LLC (Alphabet) |
| Release Date | 2008 |
| Category | Photo & Video / Entertainment |
Data source: Apple App Store and Google Play.
How Many People Use YouTube?
YouTube is one of the most used apps in the world by both DAU and MAU.
DAU & MAU Stats
| Month | DAU (M) | MAU (M) |
|---|---|---|
| April 2026 | 1,344 | 1,740 |
| March 2026 | 1,332 | 1,763 |
| February 2026 | 1,335 | 1,866 |
| January 2026 | 1,331 | 2,058 |
| December 2025 | 1,329 | 1,917 |
| November 2025 | 1,330 | 1,702 |
| October 2025 | 1,318 | 1,647 |
| September 2025 | 1,317 | 1,884 |
| August 2025 | 1,322 | 2,090 |
| July 2025 | 1,318 | 2,144 |
| June 2025 | 1,322 | 2,011 |
| May 2025 | 1,321 | 1,890 |
Data source: AppMagic.
DAU has been steady around 1.3 billion across the entire 12-month window. That’s an extraordinarily stable base.
How Many Downloads Does YouTube Have?
YouTube has crossed 2 billion lifetime downloads on iOS and Android, putting it firmly in the conversation for most downloaded apps of all time. Note that on most Android devices YouTube ships pre-installed, so true reach is even higher than the install counter suggests.
| Period | Downloads |
|---|---|
| All-Time Downloads | 2.0B |
| 2026 YTD | 38M |
| 2025 | 113M |
| 2024 | 170M |
| 2023 | 182M |
| 2022 | 203M |
| 2021 | 244M |
| 2020 | 208M |
| 2019 | 183M |
| 2018 | 175M |
| 2017 | 192M |
| 2016 | 162M |
| 2015 | 153M |
Data source: AppMagic.
2021 was YouTube’s peak download year at 244 million. The drop since then reflects how saturated the install base now is.
How Much Money Does YouTube Make?
YouTube has generated $9.9 billion in lifetime in-app revenue through April 2026. 2025 was its biggest year at $2.16 billion.
Important context: this number reflects only what flows through Apple and Google’s billing rails, mostly YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium subscriptions plus a slice of Super Chat and Super Thanks tipping.
Advertising, YouTube’s actual main business, sits outside this dataset entirely.
Alphabet’s official disclosures put YouTube ad revenue at $36.1 billion in 2024 alone. That’s roughly 20x the IAP figure for the same year. Layer in YouTube Premium subscription revenue (a meaningful but undisclosed share of Google’s “subscriptions, platforms and devices” segment) and the total picture is multiples of what AppMagic captures.
Revenue Statistics (2015 to 2026)
| Period | Revenue |
|---|---|
| All-Time Revenue | $9.9B |
| 2026 YTD | $761M |
| 2025 | $2.2B |
| 2024 | $1.6B |
| 2023 | $1.4B |
| 2022 | $1.2B |
| 2021 | $1.1B |
| 2020 | $746M |
| 2019 | $476M |
| 2018 | $231M |
| 2017 | $102M |
| 2016 | $39.3M |
| 2015 | $1.7M |
Data source: AppMagic. Figures reflect IAP and subscription revenue net of platform fees and inclusive of taxes. Ad revenue, which is YouTube’s dominant income stream, is not captured in this dataset and is covered above.
How YouTube Makes Money
YouTube runs a four-pronged monetization model: advertising, subscriptions, creator commerce, and premium services like YouTube TV.
Advertising does most of the work. The rest is growing fast.
Advertising (The Core Business)
YouTube is one of the largest advertising platforms in the world, second only to Google Search and Meta. The formats: skippable in-stream, non-skippable in-stream, bumper ads (6 seconds), in-feed video ads, masthead ads, and Shorts ads.
Ad load on the free tier has increased materially since 2023. Pre-rolls now commonly stack two ads, mid-rolls appear in videos as short as 4 minutes, and Shorts carry interstitial ad units between videos.
YouTube Premium And YouTube Music
YouTube Premium removes ads, enables background play, and bundles YouTube Music Premium. Pricing in the US: $13.99/month individual, $22.99/month family. YouTube Music alone runs $10.99/month.
Google reported YouTube Music and Premium combined surpassed 125 million subscribers globally in early 2025. This is what shows up in AppMagic when paid through the app stores.
Most Premium subscriptions go through Google’s direct billing on Android, which keeps a much larger share than the 70% net from Apple. That’s why YouTube’s true subscription revenue is significantly higher than what AppMagic measures.
Creator Economy (Super Chat, Super Thanks, Memberships)
Live stream tipping (Super Chat), one-off video tipping (Super Thanks), and channel memberships are the IAP layer most equivalent to TikTok’s coin model. YouTube takes 30% of these payments.
Smaller than ads and subscriptions, but consistent. Strong on certain genres (gaming live streams, music, fandom channels).
YouTube TV And YouTube Shopping
YouTube TV is a $82.99/month live TV bundle, available in the US. YouTube Shopping is the affiliate and product-tagging layer creators are increasingly using.
Neither sits in AppMagic IAP data. Both are growing revenue lines. Combined with everything above, YouTube is firmly among the world’s top-grossing apps by any measure.
Monetization Efficiency
| Revenue per Download | $4.87 |
| Revenue per MAU (lifetime) | $6.02 |
| DAU/MAU Ratio | 70.3% |
Data source: AppMagic.
$4.87 per download from IAP alone is strong for a free app. Most ad-monetized apps don’t see anything like that, because their IAP layer is tiny.
YouTube Premium pulls the number up.
The DAU/MAU ratio of 70% is the headline figure here. That’s tool-tier stickiness. People open YouTube nearly every day, not weekly.
Add Alphabet’s reported ad revenue on top and true monetization per user is multiples of what shows here.
YouTube User Demographics
YouTube has the broadest age and geography spread of any major social or video app. It’s the closest thing the modern internet has to a universal platform.
| Largest age group | 25-34 (~21% of users) |
| Gender split | ~54% male / ~46% female globally |
| Top countries | India, United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico |
Data source: DataReportal Digital 2025 and Statista YouTube audience analysis.
Note: Demographic figures combine Google’s ad-platform audience disclosures with third-party panel data. They reflect global addressable audience estimates rather than direct in-app behavioral data.
YouTube Engagement Statistics
YouTube users spend a lot of time per session. That’s the entire business model.
| Average Session Length | 20.77 Minutes |
| Average Sessions per User | 6.04 |
Data source: AppMagic.
Over 20 minutes per session and six sessions per day works out to roughly two hours daily on YouTube. That’s TV-level time, on a phone.
YouTube Retention Statistics
YouTube’s retention curve looks softer than TikTok’s at the front but the data is misleading on its own.
Most users who install YouTube already use it through the mobile web or a pre-installed Android version. Cohort installs skew toward casual re-installers.
| D1 Retention | 17.1% |
| D7 Retention | 4.2% |
| D30 Retention | 2.0% |
| D90 Retention | 1.2% |
| D365 Retention | 0.6% |
Data source: AppMagic.
User Acquisition Snapshot
YouTube is unusual among the world’s top apps because most of its growth never required user acquisition in the traditional sense. It ships pre-installed on virtually every Android device sold.
That’s hundreds of millions of installs per year, automatically, in every market Google operates. No paid UA campaign in the world compares.
What Paid UA There Is, Targets Premium
The paid UA YouTube does run is almost entirely subscription-focused, not install-focused. Premium and YouTube Music trial promotions show up across Meta, Reddit, and Google’s own search and YouTube ad inventory.
The creative pattern is consistent: ad-free playback, background play, and “listen to anything” framing for Music. Lifestyle and convenience angles, not feature checklists.
Where Real Growth Is Happening Now
YouTube is in deep mature growth mode. The acquisition story isn’t new users; it’s converting free users to Premium and pushing Shorts engagement to keep daily time spent high.
Shorts has been the major product lever since 2022. It pulled in TikTok-style engagement from a younger demographic without forcing a separate install. Smart move.
Regional Signals
India dominates total user count. Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia are the fastest-growing markets for daily watch time. The US is the largest revenue market by a wide margin, driven by Premium and YouTube TV.
For app teams trying to grow subscription products or convert engaged users into paid tiers, this is exactly the territory where most growth strategies need sharper creative and stronger paid social discipline. Udonis works with app teams across categories on UA strategy, creative testing, and paid social.
Sources for this section: Meta Ad Library, Apple App Store and Google Play listings, Alphabet investor disclosures, and industry coverage from Bloomberg, The Information, and Sensor Tower.
References
- AppMagic. 2026. Mobile App Data.
- Alphabet Inc. 2025. 2024 Annual Report and Q4 Earnings.
- DataReportal. 2025. Essential YouTube Statistics and Trends.
- Statista. 2025. YouTube: Audience and Usage Statistics.
- Apple App Store. 2026. YouTube App Listing.
- Google Play. 2026. YouTube App Listing.
- Bloomberg. 2025. YouTube Premium and Music Hit 125 Million Subscribers.
- Meta Ad Library. 2026. YouTube Advertiser Campaigns.
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