BMW is the YouTube King

Like it or not, the auto industry is one giant popularity contest, and it's one that ultimately comes down to which automakers sell the most automobiles. While BMW certainly is among the top sellers in the industry in terms of luxury cars, there are other ways to gauge the popularity of brands, specifically when it comes to the internet.

The thing about BMW as a brand is that there are millions of people in the world who would love to own one but are either too young to do so or don't yet have the means to purchase a new luxury automobile. Sales numbers represent only those who actually buy the vehicles, which isn't a true representation of the brand's popularity. YouTube views, however, are a completely different story.

In terms of YouTube, the popular video streaming website owned by Google, no automaker is more popular than BMW. According to online marketing company ZEFR, BMW fans have consumed over 4 billion new BMW-related YouTube videos, easily the most of any car brand in the world. To make things even better, 95% of those views were from videos not actually produced by BMW, but by fans of the brand who just wanted to review and/or pay homage to their favorite automobiles through the medium of streaming video.

While we can't base everything on BMW fans' consumption of YouTube videos, we also can't base everything on actual vehicle sales. Together, though, we can get a good sense of things and figure out for ourselves pretty easily that BMW is one of the most respected and adored auto brands in the world. In terms of that particular popularity contest, BMW is the king.