PH Youtube top market

Philippines among top markets for YouTube


Richmond Mercurio
The Philippine Star
28 July 2019

MANILA, Philippines — Video-sharing website YouTube is exploring more local partnerships as it intends to further expand its ecosystem in the country.

Vishal Sarin, director of YouTube content partnerships in Southeast Asia, said the Philippines is one of the video-sharing site’s most vibrant and fastest-growing markets.

Vishal Sarin, director of YouTube content partnerships in Southeast Asia, said the Philippines is one of the video-sharing site’s most vibrant and fastest-growing markets. businessworld

“The Philippines is an important market for YouTube,” said Sarin, noting that the number of creator channels in the country with more than 100,000 subscribers have grown by 20 times, while the number of media channels with more than one million subscribers increased 10 times from 2016 to 2019.

“Over the years, we have seen an immense growth not only in the number of people watching videos but also in creators starting their own channels and brands going digital to engage their consumers.

As we are committed to the Philippines, we plan to further grow the YouTube ecosystem by forging more local partnerships and developing creators outside of Metro Manila,” he said.

With the continuous growth of YouTube in the country where creators continue to bring new and locally-relevant content online, the company said more opportunities arise for media, advertisers, and even users who want to be creators and start their own channel.

Among YouTube’s key partners in the Philippines are Smart Communications, the wireless subsidiary of telco giant PLDT, and leading budget carrier Cebu Pacific.

Last year, Smart launched the Free YouTube Every Day program, providing a free hour of YouTube access daily for its mobile prepaid subscribers.

As a result of the program, Smart’s mobile data usage more than doubled year-on-year and service revenues from mobile data increased by 62 percent.

“At Smart, we strive to empower every Filipino through digital innovations that can uplift their lives. Partnering with YouTube enabled us to grow our business and at the same time connect more Pinoys to relevant and useful videos every day, creating meaningful impact to the lives of our customers,” PLDT and Smart senior vice president and head of consumer market development Oscar Reyes Jr. said.

Cebu Pacific, meanwhile, used YouTube to engage its target market when it launched its month-long anniversary campaign earlier this year.

“YouTube plays an important role in our omnichannel strategy. In the recent Super Seat Fest 3.3 Sale campaign, we reached over 20 million Filipinos and Cebu Pacific became the most searched brand during the campaign period. Most of all, consumers who booked flights during the 3.3 campaign grew thrice compared to our last major seat sale,” Cebu Pacific vice president for marketing and distribution Candice Iyog said.

Broadcast media giants ABS-CBN and GMA Network are also using YouTube to reach more audiences and to address their audience’s ever-changing needs by placing some of their key entertainment and music content on the video-sharing site.

YouTube, a Google company, was launched in May 2005 to allow billions of people to discover, watch, and share originally-created videos.

World"s Top Internet User

Philippines tops world internet usage index with an average 10 hours a day

South-east Asia has three countries in the top five, while Japan comes in last 

Kate Lamb| The Guardian

01 February 2019

South-east Asia is one of the most internet-addicted regions on the planet, with the Philippines topping the global list with an average 10 hours and 2 minutes of screen time every day.

The Philippines topped the internet usage index, with two other south-east Asian nations in the top five. Photograph: Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images

The country was joined in the top five by Thailand and Indonesia, according to findings in a new report on online habits released by HootSuite and We Are Social.

Ranked third, people in Thailand were found to spend an average 9 hours and 11 minutes online each day, while those in neighbouring Indonesia also devoted more than a third of their day to screen time, clocking in at 8 hours and 36 minutes on average.

Developing nations from south-east Asia and Latin America dominated the internet usage index, with Brazil and Colombia ranked second and fourth, respectively.

Asia also featured at the other end of the spectrum, with people in Japan spending the least amount of time online – at an average of 3 hours and 45 minutes.

The report reveals 57% of the global population is now connected to the internet, spending an average 6.5 hours online each day, leading its author, Simon Kemp, to calculate that the “world’s digital community will spend a combined total of more than 1.2bn years using the internet in 2019”.

The findings from the Digital 2019 report show that most time spent online is done via mobile devices, with the greatest portion of that time spent on social media. It also charts an exponential increase in the number of new internet users.

“The big story in this year’s data is the accelerating growth in internet users,” Kemp wrote, “More than 360 million people came online for the first time in 2018, at an average rate of more than one million new users every day.”

The country that experienced the biggest jump in internet usage in 2018 was India, which also struggled to counter the violent repercussions of viral fake news – with false rumours about child kidnappers spread on the messaging service WhatsApp leading to mob lynching and the murder of more than two dozen people.

The south Asian nation saw the number of internet users jump by almost 100 million last year, nearly doubling the same growth in China, with internet penetration in India now at 41%.