178 million U.S. internet users watched online videos in April
Published June 03, 2010
On Tuesday, comScore announced that 178 million U.S. internet users watched online videos during the month of April. That number represents more than 80 percent of total internet users, according to comScore.
Overall, internet users from the United States watched 30.3 billion videos during the month. Google sites, including YouTube, took the lion's share of the market, accounting for more than 13 billion videos - 43.2 percent. Hulu, Microsoft, Viacom and Yahoo network sites rounded out the top five, though they made up less than 10 percent overall.
In terms of unique viewers, Google again topped the charts. Google's sites attracted 136 million unique users, who watched an average of 96 videos per person. The number of videos watched per person was generally proportional to how many unique viewers the site served, though Hulu users tended to watch more videos than average.
A recent study conducted by eMarketer found that videos were an effective way of appealing to customers. According to eMarketer senior analyst Jeffrey Grau, "videos boost sales conversion rates and reduce abandoned shopping cart and product return rates."