Online video viewing in the US reached a new high last month, new statistics have revealed.

According to data from comScore, the amount of people in the country using the web for such an activity reached 158 million in July, the highest figure ever recorded.

A total of 21.4 billion videos were viewed during the period, a record 8.9 billion of which were viewed on Google-owned websites.

Of these, over 99 per cent were watched on YouTube.

Viacom Digital ranked second with 3.8 per cent of the share, followed by websites owned by Microsoft with three per cent of the market.

Over 158 million viewers in the country watched an average of 135 videos over the course of the month, with Google websites having an average of 74.1 videos per viewer and Microsoft portals coming second with 9.8 videos per viewer.

The research firm noted that the rise was partially due to the lack of new television content shown in the US during the summer months, prompting people to head online to find "fresh content".

Last month, comScore revealed data showing that Google continues to dominate the UK online video market, having seen a 58 per cent increase in content consumed over the course of the year.