Total hours of videos viewed by Taiwanese on YouTube grew 60 percent in the first 11 months this year from last year, thanks to the rise of mobile devices, Google Taiwan said yesterday.
“We observed that Taiwanese and YouTube have been inseparable as more people visit the Web site to search for videos that interest them,” Google Taiwan general manager Stanley Chen (陳俊廷) told a press conference.
Based on a survey conducted online by Google and market information company TNS between April and May, the majority of Taiwanese users watched YouTube for the purposes of “creation, connection, social networking and sharing,” Google Taiwan said in a report.
Among the 1,726 people surveyed, 52 percent said they visited YouTube to search for specific videos, while 34 percent surfed the site to interact with friends or relatives, the report said.
In terms of the content users viewed, up to 62 percent of users visit YouTube to watch music videos, while 51 percent visit the site to watch videos posted by friends and families and 42 percent visit YouTube to watch TV programs.
Aside from watching cartoons, movie trailers and short clips featuring celebrities, 16 percent of users also visited YouTube to watch live sports events, Google Taiwan said.
GOING MOBILE
With easier access to the Internet via smartphones and tablets, YouTube users who use the Web site on a daily basis accounted for 40 percent of the total YouTube users in Taiwan this year, compared with 24 percent in 2011, it said.
In addition, users who visit YouTube through handheld devices like smartphones and tablets accounted for 28 percent of total users, versus 72 percent who access it via traditional PCs, like laptops and desktops, according to the report.
“YouTube has become an important platform that businesses cannot ignore when selecting channels for their marketing strategies,” Chen said.
MARKETING TOOL
Citing the growth figures indicated in the report, Chen said Taiwanese businesses should include YouTube as one of their marketing tools.
“To optimize returns on marketing expenses, companies’ marketing executives are better off using both YouTube and TV as the two major media to market products to capture a larger audience’s attention,” Chen said.
As of last month, the Google subsidiary had attracted more than 1 billion people from all over the world per month, becoming a major competitor against other video-sharing sites like Vimeo and Hulu.
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