Facebook is nearly two years into its efforts to built Facebook Watch into a popular platform for original, licensed and creator community video content.
Now, about one year after the company took Facebook Watch international, Facebook said there are more than 720 million people monthly and 140 million people daily who spend at least one minute in Watch. Daily visitors average more than 26 minutes in Watch every day.
These new figures represent a significant advancement ahead of where Facebook Watch was last year just before the international launch. At the time, the company said that every month more than 50 million people in the U.S. watch videos for at least a minute in Watch—and total time spent watching videos in Watch had increased by 14 times since the start of 2018.
RELATED: Facebook Watch is now available outside the U.S.
Facebook Watch has some new international content partnerships in the works as well. The company is partnering with ProSiebenSat.1 in Germany for pre-shows, after-shows, interviews, and spin-offs based off the provider’s existing shows like “The Voice of Germany,” “Germany’s Next Top Model– by Heidi Klum,” and “Late Night Berlin.” The International Cricket Council will be making previews, highlights and commentary for ICC World Cup matches available on Facebook Watch, and Australia’s Seven Studios will launch a slate of new original digital series.
Facebook also today announced moves to make its platform easier to access and monetize in international markets. The company said its ad breaks are available in more than 40 countries and that today its launching ad breaks in Canada. Over the coming weeks Facebook Watch will also be adding support for five more languages: Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Swedish and Telugu.
“The best way to bring great content to Watch is to create a sustainable, ad-supported ecosystem where every publisher and creator can reach their audience, make money from their videos, and thrive on the platform,” Facebook wrote in a blog post.
Facebook said the number of Pages using ad breaks has more than tripled over the past year — and the number of Pages earning more than $1,000 in payouts per month has increased by more than eight times, while the number of Pages earning more than $10,000 in payouts per month has increased by more than three times.