Facebook now averages 8 billion daily video views

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook says it now averages 8 billion daily video views from 500 million users.

That's twice the number watched daily as of last April.

Facebook's founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement during his company's quarterly earnings call with investors.

Facebook sales surge, stock at all-time high

Facebook, which now has 1.55 billion monthly active users, counts three seconds as a video view. Google's YouTube counts 30 seconds as a video view.

The announcement could make Facebook a fearsome competitor to Google's YouTube and a contender for television advertising dollars that shift to digital. Video advertising is far more lucrative for Internet giants than more traditional text or banner ads.

YouTube says people watch hundreds of millions of hours and generate billions of views on YouTube. In 2012, the video service changed its measurement metrics to focus on watch time. YouTube says watch time is up 60% year over year, which YouTube says is the fastest growth rate in two years.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter says Facebook should continue to benefit from "the increasing popularity of video among advertisers and users."

Bernstein Research analyst Carlos Kirjner says advertisers are unlikely to spend as much on Facebook video ads as they do on YouTube for the time being. "Until Facebook successfully attracts original content/uploads, we think these ads will likely continue to be bid at a steep discount to YouTube," he wrote in a research note this week.

Facebook is testing a system in which it splits revenue with video creators. It's also testing a dedicated video feed for people to watch videos shared by friends or that are popular on Facebook.