UK online video viewing hit 323m hours last month

UK web users spent 323 million hours watching online video last month, a 45% year-on-year increase according to new figures by information services firm Experian.

The Experian Hitwise stats found that in February, UK internet users made 1.06 billion visits a month to video sites, an increase of 16% compared to the same month last year when the figure stood at 867 million.

“The majority of growth in this space has been driven by YouTube, now the third most popular website in the UK after Google UK and Facebook,” said Experian claiming that YouTube accounted for 70% of all visits to online video sites.

UK Internet users spend 203 million hours watching YouTube content a month, with an average session time of 20 minutes, Experian said. Visits via mobile are also increasing with one in five visits to YouTube coming from a mobile device via WiFi compared to one in 20 in 2011.