UK a nation of YouTube addicts

Eight out of 10 UK internet users visited YouTube in April

British internet users are the most enthusiastic users of YouTube in the world, according to a new study by comScore. 

Eight out of 10 UK internet users visited the service in April, spending 10 per cent of their time online watching an average of 80 videos. US users watched an average 65 streams, France 64 and Germany 62.

"Perhaps [this indicates] that the UK is further along the adoption curve in enjoying streamed video," said Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe.

Britain also leads the pack in the percentage of overall users watching YouTube, and only the French spend more of their online lives gazing at videos at 13 per cent of overall internet time.

The comScore study also illustrated the dominance of YouTube and Google Video in the online video market.

The two Google-owned services accounted for 608 million video streams during April in the UK alone, notching up a 30.7 per cent market share.

Yahoo came in second with 9.5 per cent, followed by the BBC at 5.3 per cent and Sky at 4.3 per cent.