YouTube is emerging as a major employer in Kenya with at least 300 YouTubers with more than 100,000 subscribers each.

Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are the top countries with the highest number of YouTubers on the continent thanks to higher Internet penetration.

“Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa each has at least 300 channels with more than 100,000 subscribers,” said the latest report 2022 YouTube Rich List prepared by social media tracking platform Cashnetusa.com.

Kenya’s top YouTube channel is Rus Love in Action, Thee Pluto (674,000), Eve Mungai (600,000), Jalang’o TV (594,000) and Njugush the comedian, Ms Trudy all of which have over half a million subscribers.

Those over 100,000 subscribers include Marwa and his sister Dee Mwango, African Tigress, African Traveler and many others.

The video platform has minted Kenyan millionaires who are now investing in real estate and agriculture across Nairobi and around the country

Viewing figures

However, African YouTubers face an uphill task since only 22 per cent of the population have access to the internet.

“African YouTubers haven’t traditionally been able to reach the viewing figures of large content creators in other regions; they face an uphill struggle as only 22 percent of Africa’s population have access to the internet,” the report said.

Africa’s top earning YouTubers are, however, in Egypt and Algeria. Egypt’s Creative Crafts in Five Minutes has earned Sh900 million in all time revenues and Algeria’s Oum Walid has earned over Sh500 million over the years. Nigerian comedian Mark Angel ($4.2 million) is also among Africa’s most profitable channels. American kids’ channel Cocomelon is the highest-earning YouTube channel of all time, with an estimated $282.8 million amassed from its videos since its creation in 2006.

As well as Cocomelon in North America, Europe and South America also have kids’ channels as their highest earners. Russia’s Like Nastya ($167.5 million) and Argentina’s El Reino Infantil ($102.2 million) have both amassed more than $100 million from YouTube revenue in their channels’ history.

With more than 22 billion views, American YouTuber FGTeeV has earned the most of any gaming channel in their career, making over $47 million in that time.

Despite the growing popularity of rival content creation platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitch, YouTube is still king. It is the second-most visited website on the internet (after Google) and boasts 14.3 billion visits per month, which is more than Facebook and Wikipedia.

Over 694,000 hours of video are streamed on the platform every minute — impressive considering Netflix users stream just 452,000 hours per minute and offer feature-length movies right at their users’ fingertips.

In 2019, a survey found that a third of kids aged between 8 and 12 aspired to be a YouTuber when they grew up.

“While it might not be as lucrative as it seems, there are still nearly 400,000 Americans earning a living from the platform,” said the report.  To find out which YouTubers earn the most on the platform, CashNetUSA analysed channels in every country. There are 23.35 million internet users in Kenya’s overall population of 55.60 million people! At the beginning of 2022, Kenya’s internet penetration rate was 42 per cent of the entire population.

Cheap smartphones

Digital media usage is likely to continue “changing swiftly” due to increased technological innovation, the availability of more cheap smartphones on the market, and improved connections (3G, 4G, and 5G) in the nation. Furthermore, in January 2022, Kenya had 11.75 million social media users. According to Kepios data, social media users in Kenya rose by 750,000 (+6.8 per cent) between 2021 and 2022.

Kenya has a vibrant social media environment that reflects both the vast range of information viewers seek and the culture of online content consumption.

Kenya alone has hundreds of blogs. According to the Bloggers Association of Kenya, a membership organisation, there are 19,000 blogs in Kenya.