So you don’t have to skip to the last paragraph of the story, as so often happens these days, we’ll tell you right now: the most-used streaming service in Japan (and by a very wide margin) is YouTube. Yes, you read that right.
YouTube accounted for more than 65% of the total digital on-demand video hours watched in Japan in May, reaching 72 million viewers who, taken together, racked up 2.8 billion hours on the platform, according to new behavioral data from ampd Analytics.
The figures come from ampd’s YouTube dashboard, a streaming analytics tool launched by ampd Analytics, a Media Partners Asia company. Japanese viewers logged an average of 38.5 hours per person on the platform that month.
YouTube Captures More Than 65% of Japan’s Digital VOD Hours, With News and Baseball Leading Viewership https://t.co/1zqrgsNjjW
— Variety (@Variety) June 30, 2026
The data points to a broad nationwide audience, rather than one skewed toward young people. YouTube’s reach is split almost evenly by gender, with 36.1 million male viewers and 35.5 million female viewers, and spans every age group, from the 18 million viewers between 10 and 29 to the 13 million aged 60 or over.
Viewing is concentrated in the Kanto region, which has 32 million viewers, and that’s because in Japan you can watch both baseball (the national sport) and official news channels on YouTube.
Author: Chema Carvajal Sarabia
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