YouTube continues video platform domination
Seven-year-old YouTube creator Lime demonstrates how to play with slime in a video uploaded on Lime Tube’s YouTube account, Friday. / Courtesy of Lime Tube
By Lee Suh-yoon
YouTube once again claims its dominance in Korea, one of the world’s most-wired societies, as it was found to be the most-preferred mobile platform by Koreans.
Local research firm WiseApp recently released its analysis showing YouTube continued its reign as the country’s top mobile application, with Korean smartphone users spending more time on the video-sharing platform than any other applications.
WiseApp compared the time Korean Android users spent on four top applications -- KakaoTalk, YouTube, Naver and Facebook. The results were extrapolated from a data sample of over 20,000 Android users.
According to its analysis, Koreans spent 25.7 billion minutes -- triple the figure from two years ago -- on YouTube last month.
During the same month, the market researcher said users spent 17.9 billion minutes on KakaoTalk, followed by 12.6 billion minutes on Naver and 4.2 billion minutes on Facebook.
Not only does YouTube have the most users -- 23.8 million -- it has also topped the list in terms of receiving daily users, said the local consultancy.
This is attributed to YouTube being more convenient and user-friendly than any others, helping it break the record in terms of viewership.
“Things are more interesting and easy to understand when someone explains it to you face-to-face,” said a 26-year-old active YouTube user, only identified by her surname Kwak.
Last year, three YouTube channels in Korea each exceeded 10 million subscribers. Also, the number of channels with more than 1 million subscribers increased by 39 to reach 90 in 2017.
Two of the three YouTube channels receiving over 10 million subscribers were thanks to the popularity of K-pop clips and a flurry of entertainment content by SM Town, a major Korean entertainment agency, for its flagship acts such as EXO.
The third channel, Toy Pudding TV, has nothing to do with K-pop, but still boasted over 13 million subscribers. YouTube’s digital domination in content for kids is exemplified by the popularity of Korean YouTube creators who unbox and play with intriguing toys.
Even children who are too young to shoot or edit videos participate as creators with the help of their parents. These young entrepreneurs review the latest trending toys.
Lime -- a seven-year-old creator -- joined YouTube with her father in December 2014. Her channel, Lime Tube, now has over 900,000 subscribers.
Though these videos are primarily customized for children, they’ve had solid popularity among young adults looking for lighthearted and original content.
Contents like these are compiled in the popular “Youtube Kids” app alongside popular cartoons and educational content.
Youtube Kids has become a common feature in family living rooms. KT Skylife and LG Uplus -- major satellite broadcasting providers -- both include “YouTube Kids” as a basic staple of its Android TV box.