With 500,000 viewers per day, VR is the fastest-growing category on Pornhub

By Luke Dormehl Published May 15, 2017

Think virtual reality porn is a gimmick that will never catch on? Don’t tell the folks over at Pornhub, because according to its latest user figures, VR is one of the fastest- growing categories of video on the website, in terms of both videos uploaded and users watching them.

Since being launched back in the more innocent days of spring 2016 — when the only thing immersive about adult videos was their in-depth plots, usually involving plumbers turning up to the fix the sink in a sorority — hundreds of new VR videos are now being added to Pornhub each month. That is nothing compared to the number of users watching, though. On a typical day, VR porn videos are viewed 500,000 times.

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What is more, VR viewers hang around to watch more videos than the usual visitors who, for some unfathomable reason, lose interest in the website after just a few minutes. In the case of virtual reality fans, however, they tend to watch a total of 11 videos — compared to nine videos per sordid visit for regular viewers.

Men also tend to be bigger VR fans than women, being proportionately 160 percent more likely to view VR content than women, while the videos are most likely to be viewed by folks in the 25- to 34-year-old demographic.

Slightly unsettlingly, the most popular day for viewing VR porn is Christmas Day, possibly explained by the number of headsets given out as gifts that day.

Finally, despite the fact that both Silicon Valley and the adult entertainment industry are largely centered around the West Coast, VR porn is most popular among those in eastern states including New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and New Jersey. In terms of countries, the “genre” is proportionately most popular in Thailand, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Taiwan, although the highest growth rate took place in Ireland and the United Kingdom.

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I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…

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