Kenyan YouTube channels with over 1 million subscribers

The number of YouTube channels making seven-figure earnings rose by 60 percent in the past year with Kenyans leading the content creation race with 400 channels.

Addressing the Annual YouTube for Africa Roundtable, YouTube Managing Director for EMEA Emerging Markets Alex Okosi said the 400 channels have over 100,000 subscribers each, a year-on-year increase of over 70 percent.

Mr. Okosi, who spoke when he unveiled a newly appointed team to drive content creation in Africa said they had embarked on initiatives that help creators in Kenya and across Africa to improve the quality of content uploaded on YouTube thereby enhancing the creators' reach and earning potential. 

According to Mr Okosi, Kenya has seven channels with over one million subscribers where one channel has since attracted over one billion views. Among them are Citizen TV, Churchill Show, KTN News, NTV Kenya, K24 TV and the latest being R&B singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor Otile Brown.

Statistics unveiled this week show that Kenya leads Africa in consuming its content with a paltry 45 per cent of Kenyan content being consumed by a global audience. In Nigeria, which has 300 channels with over 100,000 subscribers each has up to 75 percent of its content consumed by a global audience while South Africa’s content attracts 65 percent of viewers from across the world.

“Africa has an amazing culture and good storytellers who use YouTube to showcase Africa’s diversity. We are committed to enabling these Creators to voice their stories and provide access to the rest of the world using YouTube which, in the long run, leads us too to success,” he said.

More than 70 per cent of watchtime happens on mobile devices while YouTube watch time on mobile app devices averages more than 60 minutes per day. Watch time on YouTube on television screens alone now tops over 250 million hours per day.

 As of February 2022, YouTube subscribers for the top 7 channels in Kenya are; 

 3.17 million - Citizen TV

 2.19 million - KTN News

 1.95 million - Churchill Show

 1.71 million - NTV Kenya

 1.19 million - K24 TV

 1.08 million - Otile Brown