78.4 per cent of digital video viewers will use their mobile phones to watch streamed content in 2018, with nearly a quarter of the world’s population watching at least one video over a mobile phone this year.

According to eMarketer, 2.38bn people will watch streamed or downloaded video content via any device this year, and a staggering 1.58bn of these people will watch a video on YouTube at least once per month.

Overall, eMarketer predicts that 66.8 per cent of digital video viewers will view a video on the Google-owned video sharing platform this year – similar to the figures when looking at the UK alone.

“Video’s proliferation on social networks and the growth of over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms are major drivers of digital video viewing worldwide,” said Oscar Orozco, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer. “However, an understated driver of video viewing is the use of chat apps. We forecast that close to 55 per cent of internet users will be active on chat apps by the end of 2018. Watching and sharing digital videos is a major feature on chat apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and WeChat, and for many internet users, it’s their first experience with digital video. We expect this will continue to be a significant driver of mobile video consumption.”