YouTube launches in South Africa

Today a new territory is added to the list of YouTube locations: South Africa. This is the first domain launch on the African continent. For a closer look, head to the bottom of the page, click on the ‘Location’ tab, and select South Africa from the menu:

In practice, this means that South Africa-based channels like Freshlyground and Khayav should enjoy more profile locally, and at the same time should also find it easier to identify other local users. From now on when users in South Africa visit the localized site they will see, for example, the Most Popular and Most Viewed videos in South Africa along with local content that closely matches their interests.

In conjunction with launching our South African domain, we are teaming up with local broadcasters to ensure that YouTube users, wherever they may be, have access to some of the best locally produced content from leading local broadcasters. These include the South African Broadcasting Corporation and e.tv, who have uploaded news content including content about all the soccer fever building up in the country!

In addition, South African journalism schools, such as Rhodes Journalism School and Wits Journalism School, are also using YouTube to showcase aspiring journalists’ talent and highlight news items that are frequently under-reported:



All in all, we are pleased to be officially putting down roots in South Africa and look forward to working with South African users, partners and advertisers to make the YouTube community even bigger, even more diverse and even brighter than it is today.

Divon Lan, Product Manager, Africa, and Brian Truong, Product Manager, recently watched “YouTube Turns Five!”