In 2022, the adult online content market in the United States was estimated to have a value of almost *** million U.S. dollars. In 2023, the pornographic website market in the U.S. is projected to surpass *** ******* U.S. dollars in value, with an annualized market growth of **** percent. By 2023, the online porn market in the country is estimated to experience a growth of approximately ** percent compared to 2018.

Over 10 million male internet users in the United Kingdom (UK) reported accessing pornographic content online in May 2023. Men were the largest audience of online pornography in the country as of the recorded period, while fewer than four million of women reported accessing pornographic material online.

According to a survey of online users conducted in January 2024 among audiences in Great Britain, almost *** in ** respondents aged between 25 and 49 years reported watching porn most days. In comparison, around ** percent of respondents aged between 18 and 24 reported watching porn content between one and three times per week. Around **** in ** respondents aged between 50 and 65 reported they did not watch porn, although they said they had accessed this type of content before.

By 2023, it is projected that online pornography and adult content businesses in the United States will have ***** employees. This represents an increase of approximately ** percent from the *** employees in the industry estimated in 2018.

The number of adults in Russia who visited porn websites at least once a month over the observed period was recorded at its maximum in May 2018, when the audience exceeded 12 million people. Since then, the monthly count saw a gradual decrease, measured at 10 million viewers in October 2018.

In 2022, there were an estimated 100 companies and businesses in the United States in the adult content and online pornographic business. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of online porn companies in the U.S. is estimated to have grown by ** percent.

Pornhub, which is owned by the Canadian entertainment conglomerate Aylo, saw over three billion visits to its website from users based in the United States in January 2024. Web visits from Indonesia ranked second, as almost 765 million visits from the country were registered to Pornhub in the examined period. Brazil followed, with around 503 million visits to the popular pornographic website. France users generated approximately 470 million visits to the website during the measured month.

In December 2024, *********** was the most popular pornographic websites among online audiences in the United Kingdom. The popular adult website saw around ****** million visits in the examined month. ******* ranked second, with almost ** million visits generated in the last month of 2024, while Cyprus-based ************ saw ** million visits during the same time.

Who watches online porn? Online pornography consumption is a heavily gendered phenomenon in the UK. As of May 2023, over ** million men and male teenagers were reported to be watching pornography online, while the number of women accessing pornographic content online was *** million. Pornhub was the adult content website with the highest reach among adult men in the UK in 2023, as ** percent of all digital male users reported engaging with the website. In comparison, while Pornhub was still the pornographic website with the highest reach among adult women, only **** percent of all female online users in the UK reported engaging with the platform.

Online porn consumption trends in the UK Approximately *** in ** users aged between 18 and 24 years, as well as among users aged 25 and 49 years, watched pornography two or three times per week. Overall, the frequency of watching pornographic content among online audiences was ****** among users aged between 18 and 24 years than for users over 50 years of age. The preferred time of day for accessing online pornographic content was between the morning and the afternoon, as ** percent of UK users reported seeking this type of content between **** and *****.

As of November 2024, pornhub.com held the leading adult content and pornographic website for global uses, as it averaged around 5.25 billion monthly visits. Xvideos ranked second, with 3.47 billion monthly visits. While adult content makes up one of the largest chunks of the global internet traffic, search engine Google and social video platform YouTube ranked as the most visited platforms at the end of 2024, with 136 and 72.8 billion visits monthly.

Between April 2022 and January 2024, global traffic to Pornhub.com originated mainly from mobile devices. In January 2024, Pornhub saw over 11.4 billion mobile visits from global users. In the same month, the desktop traffic to the popular pornographic website was less than 500 million visits. In October 2023, approximately 97 percent of the traffic to Pornhub.com came from mobile devices.

According to a 2021 report issued by the UK Safer Internet Center and the Revenge Porn Helpline in the United Kingdom, the average number of photos shared non-consensually in the case of female victims was 12.5. In comparison, the number of photos in revenge porn cases involving male victims was 0.2.

The number of cleared crime cases regarding the violation of the laws against child prostitution and child pornography on the internet in Japan amounted to more than 1.9 thousand in 2023. The number made up a significant proportion of the total number of cleared cybercrime cases during that year.

As of the third quarter of 2024, close to 70,000 requests for website restrictions were made by the South Korean government, citing violations of regulations about pornography and prostitution as the reason. This was followed by restriction requests because of digital sex crimes, at around 58,880 cases.

In 2023, the police in South Korea recorded *** individual cases of illegally created deepfake sexual content on the internet. The number of such reports has increased slightly over the last three years. Recently, the issue of illegally created deepfakes has gotten more attention in South Korea as a set of Telegram rooms distributing AI deepfake pornography has been discovered.

In 2023, adult entertainment performer Abella Danger collected the largest amount of video views on pornographic platform Pornhub. The performer generated over 1.89 billion views during the year. Angela White ranked second with 1.23 billion video views, while Eva Elfie ranked third with over one billion views. Pornhub is among the leading adult entertainment and pornographic tube-style websites, where both users and professional content creators or entertainment companies can upload their own content. Pornhub: adult entertainment market lead When it comes to the adult entertainment industry online, Pornhub barely has any rival in gaining the attention of global crowds. In May 2024, it was the most popular pornographic website, with approximately 5.5 billion visits, while second-placed Xvideos reported around four billion website visits in the same month. Launched in May 2007, Pornhub is now owned by the Canadian entertainment conglomerate Aylo. The United States was Pornhub's main market, with over three billion visits as of the beginning of 2024, followed by Indonesia with 765 million visits, and Brazil with over 500 million visits in January 2024. Is a ban looming on online pornography? In 2023, the online pornographic and adult content industry was estimated to be worth over one billion U.S. dollars. Despite the popularity of Pornhub and digital adult content in the U.S. market, approximately 16 states have approved some form of local legislation to require users to prove they are at least 18 years old to access adult content. This led Pornhub to block access to its content in several states, including Kansas and Utah, while they looked for a solution that would allow users to prove they are of adult age. In Europe, both France and the United Kingdom have been considering age verification methods for users when accessing pornography. As of September 2023, 75 percent of UK respondents who had watched adult content online declared to be over 18 by ticking a box asking for confirmation. In France, around 70 percent of internet users would support strengthening the state’s legal powers to prohibit minors from accessing pornographic content.

In 2023, adult entertainment performer Elle Brooke was the most popular online personality on the pornographic platform Pornhub for audiences in the United Kingdom (UK). American social media personality and pornographic performer Sky Bri ranked second, while Abella Danger - who was the most popular performer on the platform for global users in 2023, ranked third.

Market leader Pornhub.com: inside user consumption trends Launched in 2007, Pornhub.com has become the flagship website for online pornography and adult content hosting. In 2023, Pornhub was the most visited pornographic website in the UK, recording over 406 million visits in the month of December. The platform, formerly under Manwin, and later Aylo, was bought in March 2023 by the Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners. In 2023, the website’s main audience was composed of users aged between 25 and 34 years – as 30 percent of Pornhub viewers were adults in this demographic. The distribution of pornhub.com audiences was deeply unbalanced, as only 30 percent of the platform’s audience was composed of women, versus 70 percent of men.

Age of restrictions: protect or kill the business? At the beginning of 2024, Pornhub decided to block access to its website in the U.S. states of Montana and North Carolina. According to the company, the age verification regulations would jeopardize users’ privacy, hence the decision to stop servicing the two states. In the United Kingdom, the media regulator Ofcom has proposed a set of measures to implement within the country’s Online Safety Act to better regulate access based on age. While it is still unclear whether this would hurt the online pornography market, a 2023 survey revealed that only three in 10 UK respondents would comply with age checks to access porn content online, while over five in 10 would leave the website. In 2023, the most commonly used age verification methods when accessing online pornography relied on users’ disclosure of their birthdate, or a simple box tick to confirm they were 18 or older. While this is supposed to be a start, children and other vulnerable users might still manage to access content they do not have the appropriate age to view.