Pakistan YouTube viewing tops world, with 96 million Pakistanis using YouTube and watching around 560 million videos on the platform every day, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told a parliamentary committee on 3 November. The PTA chairman said Pakistan ranked first globally in terms of YouTube video viewership, with 96 million users accessing the platform. For a country with a large young population and growing internet access, the figures show how central online video has become to daily life, learning, entertainment and work.
The figures were shared by PTA Chairman Major General retired Hafeez Ur Rehman, who briefed the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications at Parliament House. The committee was chaired by MNA Syed Aminul Haque, and lawmakers also raised concerns about deteriorating telecom services, frequent internet disruptions and delays in improving network infrastructure. That context matters, because the same briefing that reported record viewing also heard complaints about the networks that carry that viewing.
Hafeez Ur Rehman told the committee that 96 million Pakistanis currently use YouTube, while 560 million videos were watched daily on the platform, placing the country at the top globally in terms of YouTube viewership. The 560 million figure refers to videos watched in a single day, not 560 million individual viewers, and the distinction is important, because the same user can watch multiple videos throughout the day. On average, that would mean about six videos per user per day, if every account were active daily, although the briefing did not say whether users means unique people, accounts or monthly active users.
TikTok users Pakistan also featured in the briefing, with the PTA chairman saying TikTok has 100 million users in Pakistan, while nearly 150 million videos are watched and uploaded on the platform daily from the country. That figure shows that short video is also huge in Pakistan, and that TikTok and YouTube together account for a very large share of daily screen time. The two platforms are different, with YouTube offering longer videos, learning content and music, while TikTok offers short clips, but both are now part of daily life for tens of millions of Pakistanis.
WhatsApp messages Pakistan were also reported, with the PTA chairman saying Pakistanis send around 12 billion WhatsApp messages and make one billion calls a day through the platform. WhatsApp has around 100 million user accounts in the country, according to the briefing, which means that messaging is almost as widespread as video viewing. For many families and businesses, WhatsApp is the main way to stay in touch, to share photos and videos, and to coordinate work, and the daily message count shows how deeply it is woven into daily life.
5G users Pakistan were also mentioned, with 18 million people using 5G services across 24 cities, according to the briefing. That figure is smaller than the YouTube and TikTok figures, because 5G is still new in Pakistan, and it is available only in some cities. As 5G spreads, video viewing is likely to grow further, because faster mobile internet makes it easier to watch high quality video without buffering, and it allows more people to watch on the move.
The figures are the PTA chairman’s statement to the committee, and they have not been published as a dataset. No minutes, attendance list or transcript was publicly available at the time of reporting, and the committee’s record was not publicly available, so the difference between published accounts of the briefing on one TikTok measure and on the number of 5G users could not be resolved from the briefing itself. Readers should therefore treat the figures as the chairman’s briefing, rather than as a published official dataset, and they should note that no counting method was given with the numbers.
That caution does not change the main point, which is that online video in Pakistan is very large, and that it is growing. Young people use YouTube to learn new skills, to watch dramas and music, to follow news, and to earn money as creators. Teachers use it in classrooms, businesses use it to reach customers, and families use it to stay entertained at home. The platform has become a classroom, a cinema and a marketplace in one, and its reach is now measured in tens of millions of users.
For creators, the figures are encouraging, because they show that there is a large audience in Pakistan for Pakistani content, in Urdu and in other languages. A creator who makes a useful video, a funny clip, or a good drama can reach millions of viewers without a television channel, and can earn income from advertising and other sources. That opportunity has helped to create a new generation of digital creators, who work from home, from small studios, and from cities and villages across the country.
In the coming months, the items to watch will be whether the PTA publishes the underlying data, whether telecom networks improve to support the growing demand, and whether 5G spreads to more cities. The briefing also raises a question about digital literacy, because watching 560 million videos a day is only useful if viewers can tell good information from bad, and if creators can make content that is accurate and helpful. For now, Pakistan YouTube viewing tops world, and the country has 96 million users watching every day.
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