35 hours of video a minute uploaded to YouTube

(AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMM)

YouTube said Thursday that 35 hours of video are being uploaded to the video-sharing site every minute, up from 24 hours per minute in March.

Hunter Walk, director of product management at Google-owned YouTube, said the number of uploads to YouTube has more than doubled in the last two years.

The rate of 35 hours of video per minute works out to 50,400 hours of video every day.

"Another way to think about it is: if three of the major US networks were broadcasting 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year for the last 60 years, they still wouldn't have broadcast as much content as is uploaded to YouTube every 30 days," he said in a blog post.

Walk said a number of factors were behind the jump in video uploaded to YouTube including an increase in the time limit for videos to 15 minutes from 10 minutes and an increase in the file size to two gigabytes.

More video is also being uploaded from mobile phones, he said.

Google bought YouTube in 2006 for 1.65 billion dollars but the Mountain View, California-based Internet search and advertising giant has not yet announced a profit for the site despite its massive global popularity.

YouTube has been gradually adding professional content such as full-length television shows and movies to its vast trove of amateur video offerings in a bid to attract advertisers.