Pornhub's 2016 Year in Review – Pornhub Insights

It may have seemed like 2016 was never going to end, but here we are at the beginning of what we’re hoping will be a happy and healthy 2017. Overall it’s been a pretty steady ride, but boy are we excited to kick off a new chapter! We’ve had a great year at Pornhub, and our Insights blog has delivered tons of awesome data over the course of 2016. Throughout the year we’ve covered interesting search trends analyzing the cultural intersection between Pornhub and the likes of Clowns, Pokemon, Politicians, and even Super Heroes.

We’ve also looked at how certain events can affect traffic to Pornhub including the Olympic Games, Major League Baseball, Snow Storms and of course the Presidential Election. As we’ve done for the past three years and counting, we’re wrapping it all up with a pretty bow and delivering you all of 2016’s top stats for Pornhub’s 4th annual Year in Review.

2016 was a busy year for Pornhub users. Nearly 92 billion videos were watched over the course of 23 billion visits to the site by many millions of very horny visitors. That’s 64 million visitors per day, or 44,000 every minute. Collectively, that’s 4.6 billion hours of porn watching stuffed into just one year. To break it down really quickly, in order to deliver that volume of free porn, our servers streamed 99 Gigabytes of data every second. To help put this into perspective, try to picture the size of a 16GB USB stick. Now imagine 194 million USB sticks, spanning 11,000km (6800 miles) from end to end; or around the entire circumference of the moon. Still can’t imagine it? Take another look at the infographic above, and it will surely help clarify everything.

TRAFFIC TRENDS

This year several countries got bumped up, down and even (for one) off our list of Top 20 countries that bring the most viewers to Pornhub. Notably, Japan jumped 7 spots making it into our top 5 this year, pushing Germany (now in 7th place) out of the top 5 for the first time since 2013. As always, the United States dominates this list, driving a whopping 40% of visits to the site, with the UK following in second place and Canada, a close 3rd. Our friends in South Africa have climbed 4 spots since 2015 to make it into our top 20, coming just ahead of former Top 20 country, Romania.

SEARCH WATCH

Next up let’s take a look at some of Pornhub’s most popular search terms from 2016! For the second year in a row ‘lesbian’ was the number one search term worldwide. ‘Step mom’ was second (up 1 spot from last year) followed by ‘MILF’ up 2 places from 2015. ‘Lesbian scissoring’ jumped a couple dozen positions to make the top 20 this year. An all-new term that shot into our top search terms lists of 2016 is ‘Overwatch’, in reference to the popular video game released earlier this year. Well known for its fast action and overtly sexualized characters, the game quickly became the subject of hundreds of fantasy porn parodies and tribute videos. “It appears that the trend is moving more toward fantasy than reality. ‘Generic’ porn is being replaced with fantasy specific or scenario specific scenes. Is this as a result of boredom or curiosity? One thing is certain; the typical ‘in-out, in-out’ no longer satisfies the masses, who are clearly looking for something different” notes Dr Laurie Betito, sex therapist and author of The Sex Bible for People Over 50″.

Here we’ll take a step into North America and see what search terms were trending in the United States over the course of the year. ‘Step mom’ remained in the top spot as the most searched term among Americans in 2016. ‘Lesbian’ kicked out ‘cartoon’ to take the title for second most searched term in the USA, while ‘step sister’ also made its move up this year and secured the 3rd place. Other terms that were highly popular among Americans this year include ‘ebony’ (jumping 12 spots from last year), ‘lesbian scissoring’ (+18 spots), ‘massage’ (+63 spots) and the greatest increase of all, ‘overwatch’ (up 452 spots from 2015). Some terms that still made our list but dropped in popularity include ‘teen’, ‘black’, ‘anal’ and ‘celebrity sex tape’.

Curious to see where some of 2016’s top terms are most popular? Well we’ve put together a special gallery below, just for that. Some stand outs include ‘lesbian’ which is by far more popular in North America and Australia than anywhere else. ‘Hentai’ is shaded a dark orange in Asia (more specifically China, the Philippines, Thailand and Japan) where it is most popular. ‘Cartoon’ is gaining popularity worldwide, with more countries shaded in dark purple this past year compared to 2015. Interestingly enough ‘MILF’ is more popular in the Western hemisphere, while ‘mom’ is dominating the East.

The popularity of these search terms is determined by comparing its proportion of all other searches performed in each country. As opposed to the raw number of searches, this allows our statisticians to adjust for population density and traffic levels to what countries are more or less interested in each search term.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

This year we achieved our New Years resolution to last a little longer. 2016 has 16 seconds up on 2015, establishing an average time on site of 9:36. This could be because we can now take porn with us everywhere we go and more and more people are starting to take advantage of mobile technology in this way. We’ve also seen a huge increase in mobile traffic this past year (+1424% since 2010), but we will look into that a little later.

The Philippines is holding onto its first place position here with an average visit length to Pornhub of 12:45, exactly the same as where they were at in 2015. South Africa is in 2nd position, increasing their average visit by 11 seconds to 10:45. Followed closely by the U.S. of A (10:15, +24 second from 2015), Canada (+22 seconds up to 9:49) and Australia (9:44 up 8 seconds from 2015) to round up our Top 5. Some countries whose average time per visit dropped includes India (8:20, down by 1:10 from 2015) and Japan (7:27 compared to 7:48 in 2015). Russia and Mexico maintained the status quo however, shifting their time by a mere 1 or 2 seconds. Countries who prefer to keep their visits short and to the point include Cuba– keeping it just under 5 minutes, along with Mongolia clocking in at 5:23 and Bolivia at 6:41.

We’ve also looked into average time per visit by state, and some stand-outs include Mississippi (at the top of the group for the longest visits, 11:08), Alabama and Arkansas tied for second at 10:48 and Louisiana a close third just 3 seconds under at 10:45.

States that came and left faster than others include Oregon (9:27), Utah (9:39) and Kansas (9:44). Interestingly enough, much like last year the three states with the longest average visits were all southern states.

Taking a cue from our popular Fappy hour post, we expanded the search to see what time of day and which day of the week Pornhub users around the world were getting busy the most. Hourly traffic rates to our site haven’t shifted much from last year. There is generally a lull in traffic between 2am and 9am, when people are either sleeping or heading out of the house to start their day, and traffic then reaches its highest levels from 10pm to midnight. This trend stays true throughout most of the week, with our happiest hour from Sunday through Thursday holding strong at 11pm, and then at 12am on Friday and Saturday– when people take a break from their regular routine by staying up later at night and sleeping in longer in the mornings.

SEARCHING THE WORLD

For this portion of the review, we will take a deeper dive into our top 20 countries. We will break down the 10 most searched terms, top 5 gaining terms that grew in 2016 plus the top 3 pornstars and most viewed categories. We also have the top 3 searches that are relatively more popular in each country when compared to the rest of the world. Kicking off the list this year, it’s the home of Lady Liberty and the country that drove 40% of Pornhub’s visitors to the site- the U.S.A.

The United States makes it to the top of our list for another year and just like the last, ‘step mom’ and ‘lesbian’ are at the top of the “most searched for” list. ‘Step sister’ and ‘milf’ made some moves in 2016 putting them into the top 5. Other notable fun facts to mention, BBL (or Big Booty Latina) is searched more in America than the rest of the world, Kim Kardashian is still being searched for more than any other porn star on the site and the ‘lesbian’ category is still #winning for most views.

Next up on the list, the United Kingdom– where ‘lesbian scissoring’ and ‘lesbian seduces straight’ made leaps and bounds to land in the country’s top 10 searches. Only fitting since the #1 category in the U.K is ‘Lesbian’. ‘Giantess’ is another term that gained some love this past year, up 354% from 2015. We hope the search results for these terms helped everyone in Britain overcome the results from the Brexit vote in June. To see how the U.K.’s favorite searches differ from region to region, be sure to check out our detailed United Kingdom Divided post.

Some interesting changes happened in the great white north otherwise known as Canada. The list of top searches saw a lot of newcomers this year. ‘Mom’ shot up by 19 spots, while ‘step dad and daughter’ a saw a massive 83 spot jump and- one that is sure to make you giggle, ‘creampie,’ is up by 6 spots this year. Interestingly enough, Canadians seem to be really into new tech with ‘VR’ among their top gaining searches this year, followed by ‘virtual reality’. And although Canadians aren’t searching for ‘Canada’ on the daily, the number one relative search is none other than La Belle Province, ‘Quebec’ followed by ‘Canadian’ and ‘French’ in second and third.

Most countries take great pride in their nationality, but India takes it to a whole other level as made evident by their top searches on Pornhub. The majority of searches (top, relative and gaining) include ‘Indian’. One top term that came seemingly out of nowhere to make it into the top 10 list was ‘Indian aunty with young’, flying up to the top by 81 spots. India’s own Sunny Leone (NSFW) is again, the number one searched pornstar in the country and ‘Lesbian’ makes it to the number two spot in the top categories.

Moving up an impressive 7 spots, Japan comes in at number 5 on our list. Some interesting new terms have climbed into the top 20 this year, including ‘Japan game sex show’, ‘Japanese amateur ass’, ‘Japanese boy’ and ‘mmd’ (in reference to MikuMikuDance, a 3D tool that lets people make their own animated videos). Looks like they love a good game show in japan as ‘Japan sex game show’ is the number one top gaining search (+957%). And interestingly enough the ‘amateur’ category bumped ‘Asian’ out of the top three most viewed in the country, with the ‘Hentai’ category sitting pretty at the top of the list.

This year ‘maman francaise’ jumped 14 spots to make it into the top 3 most searched terms in France. This top gaining term of 2015 is now in the country’s top 10 search terms of 2016, landing in 3rd place. Searches for ‘VR’ have also increased by 772% this past year. Mia Khalifa (NSFW) knocked out French local Clara Morgane to become the #2 most searched pornstar in France, behind national favorite, Kim K (NSFW). Be sure to check out our detailed France’s Favorite Searches post to see how France’s porn tastes differ from region to region.

Germany remained quite patriotic throughout 2016. ‘German’ held it’s position at the top of the list for most searched terms, ‘deutsch’ came in third place, ‘german mom’ made a few strides to secure 4th place (up 16 spots from last year) and ‘german dirty talk’ climbing 17 spots to make it to number 9 on the list. Check out our Germany in Review post for more details. ‘VR’ continues to be a major trend this year, even in Germany where searches for the term increase by almost 630%. Former Miss Frankfurt (2005) Gina Lisa Lohfink, beat out Lexy Roxx (NSFW) to become the number 1 searched pornstar in Germany.

The step mom trend seems to be over down under as Australia is all about VR this year. ‘Virtual reality’ and ‘360 VR’ are the top two gaining searches this year, increasing by an impressive 523% and 440% (respectively). Some interesting new search terms that made it to the top include ‘cartoon’ (up 39 spots from last year) and- following along with the worldwide increase in popularity, ‘overwatch’ which is a brand new search term in Australia, ranking 7th place in the list of the country’s top searched terms.

Italians do love their mamas as made evident by the fact that in 2016 search terms ‘MILF’, ‘mom’ and ‘step mom’ were quite popular among Italians, and ‘MILF’ is also incidentally the number one viewed category in the country. The most impressive change here is that ‘Harley Quinn’ was the second top gaining search term of 2016. So Italians love their mamas and fictional super-villains with colorful makeup and hair dye (if this is true, might we interest you in reading our Halloween post?). Searches for the leading lady increased by an impressive 642%.

Next up we have the largest country in South America, and the country driving the 10th highest amount of traffic to our site, Brazil! Surprisingly enough some interesting terms took over the top searches this year. Starting with a new one, ‘overwatch’ took the cake in first place, while ‘pokemon’ moved up 10 spots into number 4 and ‘cartoon’ rounds out the top Brazilian searches of 2016 on Pornhub in 10th place. ‘Lesbian’ was a big hit as well- the term was number 2 in the top searches list, followed by the more patriotic ‘brazilian lesbian’ a little further down the list. ‘Lesbian licking’ was the #1 top gaining search (+459%) in the country and the ‘lesbian’ category got bumped up a spot from last year into the position as second most viewed category in Brazil.

Making it in at number 11 on our list is Mexico. Moving into the spotlight as number one most searched for pornstar in Mexico this year is brunette babe Dillion Harper (NSFW). There is no shortage of patriotic love here, with the top search being ‘mexicana’ and the top three relative searches being ‘mexicana’, ‘mexicanos’ and ‘mexico’. ‘albaniles mexicanos’, or in English, Mexican builders/bricklayers, increased in popularity by 392% over the course of 2016.

Interesting searches are popping up in Russia– despite the ban that was implemented this September. ‘Overwatch’ has taken over first place in the country’s top 10 searches of 2016, bumping ‘Russian’ down into second place. And ‘Harley Quinn’ shot up an impressive 110 spots to make it to number 9 this year. The ever popular VR trend is also of high interest in Russia, where it is the top gaining search term, marked by a 663% increase in searches.

Coming in at number 13 for the second year in a row is sunny Spain. We here at Pornhub often wonder: “Are you more of a tits guy or an ass guy”? Well in Spain the answer is ass, with ‘Anal’ being the number one category viewed in the country this year. Other popular search terms in Spain include ‘overwatch’ coming in at #3 this year, ‘VR’ jumping an incredible 478 spots to #9 and ‘pov’ (Point of View) up by 55 spots to round out Spain’s top 10 most searched terms of 2016.

Keeping it local this year, the Philippines top searches of 2016 were filled with terms like ‘pinay’, ‘pinoy’ (how Filipinas and Filipinos, respectively, refer to themselves) – both of which are also ranked number 1 and 2 in the country’s relative search terms, ‘pinoy jakol’, ‘filipina’ and ‘filipino’. When our Filipino fans are searching for the hottest babes on the Internet, those they’re seeking out most are Maria Ozawa and Mia Khalifa.

Since last year searches for ‘360 degrees’ and ‘virtual reality’ have increased by 877% and 703% in the Netherlands, respectively. Whereas last year the Dutch seemed to prefer cartoon porn, this year they’ve moved away from that fantasy, although ‘cartoon’ still ranks in at number 6 among the country’s top searched terms. An addition to the list is ‘Arab’ which climbed 11 spots making it into the 9th spot this year. Gatestone Institute reported that the Netherlands have one of the largest Muslim populations in Europe, which could explain the increase in searches for ‘Arab’.

It seems however that the Poles like their porn to be more on the mature side than some other countries. ‘MILF’ and ‘Mature’ are among the top viewed categories in the country, while ‘mom’, ‘milf’, and ‘step mom’ all rank in the country’s top 10 searches of 2016 as well. And when they aren’t searching for those terms they are on the lookout for anything related to their nationality with ‘Polish’ being the number one search term, and ‘poland’, ‘polska’ and ‘polish’ dominating the top relative searches.

Following suit with many other countries in our list, ‘VR’ and ‘360 degrees’ are gaining huge popularity in Sweden. The searches have increased by 584% and 353%, respectively. ‘Silicone sex doll’ and ‘star wars’ are also huge among the swedes.

Argentina became slightly more patriotic over the last year. Even ‘pokemon’ which jumped 26 spots this year to number 3 doesn’t come close to the number one search – ‘argentina’. It doesn’t stop there, as the nation’s top search terms also include ‘argentina anal’ and ‘argentina teen’ which increased 37% from last year. Be sure to check out our Argentina Insights post for a more in-depth look at this nation’s porn preferences.

From ‘step mom’ to ‘milf’ to ‘sister’ or ‘step sister’ Belgium made a step-family affair of it this year. Seems they like their porn a little edgier than other nations, since ‘robbers’, ‘black mail’ and ‘punished’ all increased in popularity this year as well (233%, 179% and 92% – to be exact).

And last but not least, popping its ‘top 20 list’ cherry, South Africa! Pushing Romania off the list for the first time since the beginning of Year in Review posts in 2013, South Africa rounds out our list for 2016 and it seems they are quite patriotic down there as well. Terms containing “South African’ dominate the top searches list. And if your jam is ‘black’ anything, you have something in common with South Africans whose number one viewed category is ‘Ebony.’ ‘Black south african’, ‘big ass ebony mom’ and ‘big black booty’ all increased in popularity by (respectively) 279%, 224% and 171%.

DARING DIVAS

Kim K may be the star of Pornhub’s most viewed video of all time, but she is no longer the most searched for pornstar on the site. Kim dropped 2 spots this past year sliding her way down to 3rd place, making way for everyone’s favorite MILF queen- Lisa Ann (NSFW), and Lebanon’s very own mega-babe Mia Khalifa (NSFW). Canada’s most searched for pornstar Riley Reid (NSFW) also made it into the top 5 most searched stars on Pornhub. Some of 2016’s up and cumming pornstars include Dani Daniels and Piper Perri, who jumped up 10 and 52 spots (respectively) to make the top 20 list this year.

To give you an idea of just how much Pornhub viewers love these pornstars, let’s take a look at the numbers. Although Lisa Ann was the most searched for Pornstar on Pornhub, the number of times her videos were viewed came second to Riley Ried’s, whose videos were watched the most this year- an incredible 340,127,207 times (Lisa coming in at 234,170,207). In third place with 195,122,070 video views is Mia Khalifa followed by everyone’s favorite reality star, Kim Kardashian with 81,601,096 views this year. And closing out the top 5 is Bollywood babe Sunny Leone whose videos were viewed 53,945,505 views.

For those wondering, some of Pornhub’s most searched for male pornstars include Mandingo (NSFW), in second place close behind is James Deen (NSFW) and Italian stallion Rocco Siffredi (NSFW) comes in at number 3. Although they rank high among male Pornstars, when looking at the most searched for Pornstars- male or female, these guys come in at number 26, 33 and 38. Rounding out the top ten list is Kid Bengala (NSFW) ranked 169, and Rico Strong (NSFW) ranked 180 overall.

CATEGORICAL ANALYSIS

The ‘Lesbian’ and ‘Teen (18+)’ categories held their ground this past year, both maintain their 1st and 2nd positions as the top viewed categories of 2016. Following close behind, in third place was the ‘ebony’ category and in 4th ‘MILF’. Rounding out the top 5 was ‘Anal,’ jumping up 4 spots from 2015. Some new categories that made the list this past year were ‘Shemale’ and- one of Canada’s favorites, ‘Creampie’ jumping 7 and 8 spots respectively. ‘Cartoon’ which was new to the list in 2015, and ‘Babysitter’ (down 7 positions from last January) close out this year’s list of most viewed categories.

The heat map below shows us exactly where in the world each category is the most popular. The four colors that stand out the most are red, light blue, orange and sage. Countries like Canada, the United States, Mexico, Australia, Norway and Colombia are all hitting up our ‘lesbian’ category the most. While South America, Russia, and a good portion of Western Europe and Northern Africa are more common frequenters of Pornhub’s ‘anal’ category. The sage color you see represents the higher proportion of views in the ‘Ebony’ category, which is more concentrated in Africa. And the orange that covers most of Asia, shows where the ‘hentai’ category gets the most love. There is still quite a bit of yellow spread throughout the map, which indicates a preference for the ‘teen (18+)’ category.

Check out these popular Insights posts from 2016 to learn what video categories are watched for the longest, and what categories are most popular with Pornhub Gay visitors.

SOMEONE LIKE YOU

Everyone knows girls are made of sugar and spice, and guys are made of snails and puppy dog tails, but what makes each of them tick? If it weren’t for our visitors – and of course, the help of our analytics tool that allows us to pull anonymized data from our sites, we wouldn’t be able to bring you some of our best Insights posts on the inherent differences between men and women when it comes to porn. Up next, we’ve compiled what seems to turn the ladies and the gents on the most when they visit Pornhub. And as always, ladies- who make up 26% of Pornhub’s visitors worldwide, first.

WHAT WOMEN WANT

Keeping in check with our top 20 countries, the Philippines who have been holding down the number one spot with the largest share of female viewers for the last two years, were blindsided by Brazil. Brazilian babes caught up to the Philippines, tying the reigning champs for first place with an impressive 35% of visitors to Pornhub from these countries belonging to the fairer sex. Top 20 newbie, South Africa came in at number 3 with an astounding 33% female viewership, pushing India 4th place, tied with Sweden, Argentina and Mexico (all with 30% female viewership). Countries like the United States, Canada, UK and Italy, all who were at the top of our top 20 countries fell closer to the bottom here. We took our search outside the top 20 countries and found that Jamaica actually had the highest proportion of female visitors in the world at 46%. Followed closely by Micronesia (a sub-region of Oceania) and Bahamas (both at 42%). “Women appear to be more in control of their sexuality and what excites them. It’s interesting to note that the majority of the countries where female viewership is the highest are democratic countries” says Dr Laurie, “this trend will hopefully continue, to the point where women have as much control of their sexuality as men”.

Interestingly enough it seems that there are more female visitors down south than in the rest of the world. If we were to look at countries north of the equator most are predominantly male visitors.

Moving on to search terms. Women seem to have a lot of love for ‘lesbian’ porn. The term dominated women’s top searches. From ‘lesbian scissoring’ to ‘lesbian seduces straight’ even to ‘lesbian threesome’ there was a definite request for anything female on female among our female viewers. And while the ladies’ preference was ‘Lesbian’ by a long shot, the difference in numbers between men’s most popular searches is less apparent. ‘MILF’ is the number one searched term by dudes visiting Pornhub, followed very closely by everything and anything step-family related- namely ‘step mom’, ‘step sister’, ‘mom’, ‘step mom and son’.

Naturally, there’s a considerable difference in categorical preferences between men and women as well. Once again, women are drawn to the ‘lesbian’ category whereas men are more interested in viewing videos in the ‘teen’ and ‘ebony’ categories. “Looking at the statistics, one might assume that women who are bi-curious are turning to Pornhub for education, ideas, validation and inclusion” says Dr Laurie. Although the number 1 category for each gender is very different from the other, there are many similarities in the two lists. It seems both parties have an affinity for ‘big dicks’, ‘MILF’, ‘anal’, ‘big tits’, and ‘hentai’. There are some terms however that universally more searched for by women than men. One that takes the cake is ‘pussy licking’. Gentlemen take note, women are enjoying content in the ‘pussy licking’ category 369% more than you are. The ‘female friendly’ and ‘lesbian’ categories follow with 218% and 168% more popularity with women, respectively.

In 2016 Kim Kardashian remained the most searched for Pornstar by women. However, Mia Khalifa shot up into second place, not too far behind Kimmie K. She also beat out James Deen (NSFW) who came in third and MILF queen Lisa Ann, fifth behind Sunny Leone. Not surprisingly, James Deen was more popular among the ladies than the men (searched 407% more by the ladies). Bruce Venture (NSFW) and Celeste Star (NSFW) were also searched more often by women compared to men (247% and 236% more, respectively).

To learn more about what makes Pornhub’s female visitors tick, check out these popular Insights posts from 2016.

AGE IS BUT A NUMBER

The majority of Pornhub visitors are millennials– comprising an impressive 60% of viewership, to be exact. As we climb up through the age brackets, the percentage of visitors to our site, drops. For instance, seniors aged 65+, make up the smallest percentage of our visitors, at 4%. You will notice however, that depending on the country in question these numbers may vary. In India for example, the proportion of viewers between 18 and 24 is much higher than in Spain, where majority of users are aged between 25 and 44.

We took a look into each one of our age brackets, to see what each group was searching for most, their top gaining terms and highest relative categories compared to other ages – the results, very interesting. ‘Lesbian’ makes it to the top two for our viewers aged between 18 and 44, but is the number one search term for 18 to 24 year olds. ‘Japanese’ comes in at number one for 25-34 and 35-44 year olds. “It seems people generally seek out that which is either very familiar or the polar opposite of their day to day reality” says Dr Laurie. “It’s not surprising that younger viewers seek out scenarios that they probably have not yet tried but are curious about, and the older ones look for scenarios that in a perfect world, could happen to them, with age appropriate partners.”

It seems that everyone over the age of 45 is looking for ‘MILF’ porn the most. Our middle age viewers are also searching for ‘step mom’ and ‘lesbian’content in high amounts, while our seniors (65 and up), are more into ‘granny’ porn than their younger counter parts. ‘Overwatch’ is among the top gaining searches for 18–24 year olds (+833%), probably because they are the ones most likely to be playing (or interested in) the game. ‘VR’ was also a popular top gaining term in 2016 (+721% for 25-34 year olds and +832% for 45-54 year olds). The ‘double penetration’ category is significantly more popular among the 25-34 age group while the ‘mature’ category got considerably more views from users over the age of 65 (109% more than other age groups).

DIGITAL DEVICES

As we touched on earlier, visits to Pornhub from smartphones are continuously on the rise. In 2016, traffic to our site from these types of devices increased from 53% up to 61%, stealing shares from desktop which dropped 8% from a year ago. Tablet is the one device to remain almost at par from 2015. Two countries that have seen the highest increase in mobile traffic include Cuba and Turkey. Cuba seeing an increase of 310% – possibly because diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba were restored earlier in 2016, there might have been an ease in restrictions (may be more phones or more wireless companies on the market?). In third was Sudan, trailing far behind the top two countries with an increase of 87% in mobile traffic share. Ukraine and Belarus experienced a 75% increase in mobile traffic and Armenia rounded out the top ten list with an increase of 65%.

If we take a closer look at our top 20 countries, our new friends in South Africa drove the most traffic to the site through smartphones (73%), which equates to a 15% increase in market share from 2015. The USA, India and the Philippines are not far behind each with an impressive 70% of hits to the site coming from smartphones. Although countries like Russia, Germany and Belgium had relatively low usage rates on smartphones (34%, 42%, and 42%, respectively), they all experienced growth in their respective mobile market shares. The countries that experienced the highest growth in smartphone traffic however, are Poland (+46%) and Argentina (+42%). The least amount of growth occurred in Australia– but nonetheless still increased, by 9%. Want to know more about mobile traffic, check out our insights post Porn on the Go: Mobile Traffic Takeover.

OPERATING SYSTEM UPDATE

When it comes to porn, we usually ask if you’re more into ass or tits, though the increasingly more important question when it comes to porn consumption is Apple or Android? And Pornhub never misses a chance to report on the different behavior between different OS users. So looking back at 2016, we (of course) dug into the difference in traffic and tastes by operating systems. Let’s start with desktop. While Windows continues to dominate when it comes to which operating system users count on to watch Pornhub (about 80% of desktop users), Mac OS and Linux are on the rise, with Mac OS up 8% in traffic share and Linux up an impressive 14%.

Moving onto mobile. The playing field is pretty even here, with Android and Apple iOS almost at par with one another. Android leading with 3% more users on Pornhub than Apple iOS (47% of Pornhub’s mobile users). Android’s mobile market share has increase by 5% over the last year.

BATTLE OF THE BROWSERS 

If you asked people on the street which browser they use while on desktop and which they use on mobile, the answer will most likely be different for each. 51% of desktop users seem to prefer watching their porn from Chrome, whereas mobile users are torn between Chrome and Safari (each browser holding 43% of Pornhub users). Let’s take a closer look, beginning with desktop.

Chrome is the number 1 web browser being used by Pornhub viewers on desktop and they’ve gained a small 5% of the market share this year. Nothing compared to Edge (the default browser shipped with Windows 10), usage which grew by 845% this year, although they still come in 5th place when we look at the percentage of user traffic from the browser. Coming in at number 2 (by a long shot) is Internet Explorer with 14% of Pornhub fans using it for their daily viewings. Although they are in second, they have lost a big portion of the market, dropping 21% of their shares, although we suspect many of those users migrated to Microsoft’s new Edge browser. Firefox- also losing a chunk of their traffic share (35%, to be specific) is the browser used 3rd most by Pornhub viewers.

Looking now at which mobile browsers are preferred by Pornhub viewers, Chrome and Safari are tied, each claiming 43% of users. However Chrome has gained 25% of the traffic share while Safari has only gained 1%. Android’s Browser taking the biggest hit of them all, down 56% this year. This seems to be a global trend, Statcounter reports that although Chrome has been growing over the last 12 months, it is clear that traffic from Android’s Browser has dropped by approximately 55%.

FUN AND GAMES

Whether you are a kid or a grown-ass adult, some people will always love to play video games. Back in the day, the poison of choice was N64, and there wasn’t much other competition. Nowadays there a ton of different consoles and they aren’t just for gamers. You can watch your favorite Netflix shows or even- on some, search the internet. And on that front, it seems that more and more people are choosing to view their porn on PlayStation. 53% of Pornhub’s traffic from game consoles stems from PS, up from 46% in 2015. Behind PlayStation is Xbox who has the 2nd most Pornhub users coming from game consoles, however they have lost 10% of their traffic share from 2015. PS Vita has the biggest loss in game console traffic share, down 38% from 2015.

THE NEW REALITY

In June 2014 Google released “Google Cardboard”, a somewhat disposable and easily affordable VR headset. Fast forward a few years and Facebook and Samsung released their own version of the headset (Gear VR), Sony has their Playstation VR headset and Pornhub launched its own VR category- which initially only had 30 videos. By the end of the year the category had over 1,800 videos, and counting. Some of the most popular ‘VR’ related search terms on Pornhub include (as we saw in our Top 20 countries review) ‘360 VR’, ‘360 Degree’, ‘VR Hentai’ and ‘shemale VR’, to name a few.

We also found that when compared to other age groups the VR category is most popular among 25 to 34 year olds and interestingly enough it seems that this trend is not only true among Pornhub users. Touchstone reports that the experience of VR is most appealing to millennials.

With respect to enjoying the VR content on Pornhub, it seems Asian countries are the ones most interested in VR porn. China, Thailand and Hong Kong are the top three countries where VR is most searched (proportionate to their total searches) while countries a little over to the west like Egypt and Chile round up the top 10.

PORNHUB INTERUPTED

From all the years of insights posts we’ve done here at Pornhub, I’m sure you are well aware of the shift in traffic major media events and holidays bring to the site. In this final section of our 2016 Year in Review, we will examine how various holidays, sporting events, elections and entertainment events affected traffic to the site around the world. None more so than New Year’s Eve, so let’s begin with that. On December 31st, worldwide traffic to the site dropped lower than any other day of the year (44% to be exact). With everyone getting ready to ring in the New Year, people seem to be too busy to watch porn. From Sweden to Belgium- even in Italy and France, drops of 60% and more were recorded.

Between 6 pm and midnight on Christmas Eve, traffic to Pornhub dropped about 37% worldwide, versus 14% throughout the entire day of Christmas. The largest drops in traffic came from Belgium and France, falling by 63% and 62% the evening of December 24th. Countries that closely follow these include Poland, Germany, Spain, Argentina and Sweden. Traffic to the site from these countries fell between 57% and 55% on Christmas Eve. While countries like Australia, the U.K. and Canada experienced lesser changes in traffic on Christmas Eve, on Christmas Day they experienced the largest traffic drops; -27%, -27% and -22% respectively.

Want to know more about some of your favorite hallmark holidays? Like how many times ‘stuffing’ was searched on Thanksgiving or the increase in ‘bunny’ searches on Easter. Is ‘santa claus’ or ‘mrs clause’ more popular at Christmas? And who celebrate’s more patriotically – Canada or the U.S.?  Check out the holiday coverage released during 2016 below!

HE SHOOTS, HE SCORES!

As we stated earlier, the majority of Pornhub’s viewers are made up of millennial-aged men. So not surprisingly, when a major sporting event takes place, search terms related to the event usually see a high increase. Traffic to the site is also greatly affected by these sporting events- usually the countries or cities that are apart of the event will see a significant change. Take Super Bowl 50 for example. Although kick-off was at 6:30 pm ET, traffic started to taper off at about 2 pm ET, when the pre-game show started. Traffic to the site from the United States hit it’s lowest point around 7 pm ET, and traffic from the participating cities- North Carolina and Colorado, dropped to it’s lowest (down 47% and 55%, respectively) during the first hour of the game. We also see that around 8pm (AKA half time), throughout the board traffic starts to rise again. Enough about that for now. If you want to read more about the Super Bowl, check out our insights post.

Moving onto what was arguably one of the most talked about and exciting sports events of 2016 (at least for Chicago Cubs fans) the MLB World Series. Winning their first title since 1908, the Cubs ended the century long (almost) drought. Like the Super Bowl, we checked out the traffic patterns on Pornhub of the two participating cities (Cleveland and Chicago) as well as the United States, here’s what we found. During the game traffic to the site dropped 26% in Cleveland and 17% in Chicago. Interestingly enough, traffic peaked all the way up (cue Fat Joe’s rapper voice) after the game in both cities and all over the U. S. of A. We can assume it was due to all the pent up stress and excitement (or frustration in Cleveland’s case, no offense guys) from the 10-inning, Game 7 thriller. Whatever the reason, we’re happy to be of service to you.

Although these events saw an increase in the countries and cities most implicated in the matches, sometimes a sports event is so big, it gets the whole world to take a short break from Pornhub. This was the case for the UEFA Champions League Final against Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. Like the last two events we touched on, traffic to Pornhub took a hit (world wide) during the UEFA final on May 28th. Given both teams are from Spain, it’s no surprise that their home country stopped everything to watch the final. Traffic in Spain was down almost 20% during the soccer match. Others countries that saw a heavy decrease in traffic were Iceland (-17%), Malta (down 15%) and Norway (-14%).

Next up, the Rio Summer Olympics. For this event there was just too much to report on, so read on for your quick fix and if you want the full break down, check out our insights post here. Searches related to ‘Athletes’, ‘Olympic’ and ‘Gymnastics’ saw the largest increase during the games. On average, searches related to the term ‘Olympics’ increased by 2729% during the two weeks of the Olympics. If you check out the Olympics post on our insights page, you’ll see some examples of these searches like ‘olympics sex’ or ‘nude olympics’. Searches related to ‘athlete’ were up by an average of 417% during the games, peaking at 618% pm August 16. And finally, any term you can imagine related to ‘gymnastics’ saw an average increase of 254% during the Rio Summer Olympics of 2016.

TUNE IN AND TUNE OUT

Just like any other event, major television events and broadcasts have a huge impact on traffic to the site. During an awards show for example Pornhub usually sees a (although not huge) drop in traffic. The Golden Globes is the show that decreases traffic to the site most, bringing it down by 5% followed by the Oscars and Grammy’s at -4%. Awards shows typically affect traffic from the US, however there are some series (or season) premieres that affect traffic around the globe, like the examples shown below.

Another example is from Germany. During the ‘Schutzlos’ episode of Tatort (the German equivalent of “CSI” or “Law and Order” type series, according to the NY Times), traffic to Pornhub dropped 17%. Also, during the Eurovision Song Contest Finale, traffic throughout Europe dropped by 11%. And funnily enough, during the Apple iPhone 7 keynote speech, traffic from iOS around the world, dropped by 9%.

We’ve already dove into a few specific sporting events but let’s take a look at a few that distracted Pornhub viewers the most. First on the list the Euro Cup Final of 2016, bringing traffic down by 22%. The final match between Portugal and France had a larger impact on traffic than the Super Bowl, during which traffic dropped by 17%. Pornhub also experienced a small drop in traffic during the NBA Championship (-10%) and UFC 205 (-4%) which took place in New York.

Finally, the number one entertainment show of the year, the US Presidential elections. Millions of people tuned into the debates and of course, the live election, to see who makes it out alive- Hilary R. Clinton or Donald J. Trump.

There’s quite a bit to say here so feel free to check out our insights posts for more details, but here’s the quick and dirty version. The candidates took us on quite the journey right from the get-go. During the first debate Pornhub traffic from the US dropped 13%, and by the second debate we were down 16%, the lowest it would drop during the campaign. During the evening of the election day, the site saw a dip in traffic of 15%.

PLAYING WITH YOURSELF

2016 had its share of downers that is certain, but it also had some fun. It got adults to let loose and chase Pokemon on the streets, it re-introduced us to some of our favorite movies characters and it revealed some great updates for eSports fans. We checked in to see how some of the most talked about events affected searches on Pornhub. Let’s start with Overwatch. Since May 5th, when Overwatch entered public beta, searches on Pornhub for ‘overwatch’ have been increasing. On May 9th, just a few short days after the release, searches containing ‘overwatch’ went up by 321%. After May 9th, you see a slow down in these searches, but they pick right back up around the 24th of May, when Blizzard Entertainment released the official version. The growth in searches containing ‘Overwatch’ peaked on May 29th at +447%, and have remained comfortably above average since.

Next up on the list a game that some accused of being a ploy by FLOTUS Michelle Obama to get people moving, you guessed it- Pokemon GO. Immediately after it’s US release date, Pornhub saw a huge increase in searches containing ‘Pokemon’. Even if the worldwide release wasn’t until July 13th, searches on Pornhub including ‘Pokemon’ peaked on July 13th at +271% (viewers must have been curious from to all the buzz surrounding the US release).

After seeing these results is it any surprise that characters from both of these games dominated the list of top searched video game characters of 2016? Although Lara Croft remained on top with close to 2.5 million searches overall, Sombra- Overwatch’s latest sexy hero, experienced the largest peak increase in searches on November 8th at +597%. While Tracer (another Overwatch hero) followed very close behind Lara Croft in terms of number of searches. Searches for Pokemon’s ‘Misty’ peaked on July 19th a few days after the game’s worldwide release. Fellow Pokemon Pikachu and Pokemon trainer, Ash, also made the shortlist.

To learn more about searches for your favorite game characters, check out these popular Insights posts released in 2016.

STEPPING OUT OF CHARACTER

Much like video games, usually when a highly-anticipated movie is released, or a big event makes headlines, the characters/personalities involved seem to creep into the top searches on Pornhub. Lets start with some of 2016’s top movie characters. The ladies of Ghostbusters, had the largest percent increase in searches (+929). Everyone’s favorite super hero- Batman (just admit it already!), received closed to 4 million hits on Pornhub after the release of Batman vs. Superman. Star Wars: The Force Awakens put ‘Rey’ on the map through much of 2016, increasing search results for the movie character by 816%. And finally, Harley Quinn had the highest total number of searches, clocking in at number one with more than 10 million searches.

2016’s femme fatale of choice, Harley Quinn. After the release of Suicide Squad- an action film following a task force formed by a government agency, composed of some of the most dangerous incarcerated super-villains including Quinn, searches on the site for parodies of ‘Harley Quinn’ skyrocketed up by 310%. After the release of the film, searches began to decrease however right around Halloween you see a second pick up in searches including the sexy super-villain, up 239% on the 31st of October.

To learn more about how movies can affect searches on Pornhub, check out these popular Insights posts from 2016.

CELEBRATING CELEBRITIES

While movie characters and media events always make for a good search, nothing beats good old celebrities. Once again Kim Kardashian broke Pornhub with close to 29 million searches in 2016. Half sister Kylie Jenner followed in second place with 4.5 million searches, with a peak increase of 1073% on May 21st (right around the time news broke of her short split with Tyga). Falling under his wife, and three of his sister-in-laws, Kanye West made more than enough headlines in 2016 to make it to our list of most popular celebrity searches. Searches for Yeezy peaked at 1612% in early March, around the same time Kim’s searches peaked- could this have something to do with the whole ‘he said she said’ battle that was going between the Wests and Taylor Swift at the time? Another family that made some noise this year to make it onto Pornhub’s list of most searched for celebrities, the Jolie-Pitts. After the announcement of Brangelina’s divorce late September, searches for Angelina Jolie and Marion Cotillard (who was accused of having an affair with Brad) peaked at 217% for Jolie and 982% for Cotillard.

Next, everyone’s favorite reality show of 2016, the US presidential election. First up, former Miss Universe Allicia Machado, whose searches peaked on September 30 a few days after the first presidential debate, when Clinton called out Trump for calling Machado “Miss Piggy”. On this day searches including her name increased by 6540%.  And as we’ve just seen, members of the Trump family saw massive search increases on Pornhub the day after the presidential election.

Finally, some other celebrities that made the list of most popular celebrity searches in 2016 include Beyonce, who rocked the Super Bowl half-time show on February 7th explaining the peak increase in searches for Queen Bey the following day. Prince shocked the world with his death on April 21st, the following day searches for the singer-songwriter reached it’s highest point with an increase of 992%. When it comes to percentage increase in searches, no one comes quite as close as U.K Secretary of State, Boris Johnson. On June 29th- a few days after the Brexit vote, searches for the Secretary of State and Brexit advocate, reached it’s peak up by a whopping 14624%.

Our friends at the Irish Mirror asked what Irish celebrities were most searched in 2016. International star Colin Farrell topped the list with over 95K searches worldwide, followed by Actor/Musician Jamie Dornan, although model Georgia Salpa managed to outpace Jamie 7 to 1 for searches within Ireland.

YOU’RE HIRED

Ladies and gentlemen next I would like to introduce you to the 45th first family of the United States of America, the Trumps. On November 9th, the day after the US election, not only did searches including President Elect Donald Trump increase (+874%, to be exact), but so did those of most of (sorry Eric) his family members. Although normally she might be one of the least talked about members of the family, searches on Pornhub including ‘Tiffany’ had the highest increase, up by 2548%. Following her is step-mom Melania, searches for the future First Lady increased by 1538%, and close behind Ivanka Trump with an increase of 1169% in searches.

Throughout 2016 news and media was awash with coverage of the primaries and elections, and Pornhub Insights was no different. To wrap up our 2016 Year in Review, here are some of the most popular election stats we released throughout the year.

Happy 2017 to all of our Pornhub fans! Thanks for making 2016 one for the record books.

_______________Some graphic resources courtesy of Freepik.