A six-year-old is among the top 10 earners from YouTube videos this year, having earned eight billion views and pocketed US$11 million.
Ryan, whose second name and other details were not revealed, stood ninth on a list compiled by Forbes which showed that earnings by the top 10 had increased by 80% from US$70.5 million in 2016 to US$127 million this year.
The boy earns his money from videos of unwrapping toys which his parents have been filming since he was three years old. His channel is known as Ryan ToysReview.
The list was compiled for the period June 1, 2016 to June 1, 2017, and the amounts earned given here are before management fees and taxes. Data was collected from YouTube, Social Blade and Captiv8. Agents, managers, publicists, producers and lawyers were also canvassed for information.
{loadposition sam08}The top earner was Daniel Middleton, known as DanTDM, who earned US$16.5 million, the highest amount earned by anyone since Forbes started keeping records in 2015. He posts streams of the game Minecraft.
Six of the 10 on the list were newcomers this year. Second on the list was Evan Fong (US$15.5 million) who is a gamer.
But the gamer PewDiePie saw his earnings fall from US$15 million to US$12 million this year after he came under fire for using racist language and anti-Semitic images. He was sixth on the list.
Jake Paul placed seventh with US$11.5 million and his older brother Logan, with US$12.5 million, shared fourth place with gamer Mark Fischbach.
Dude Perfect, a group of five males with a mascot in a panda costume, made US$14 million to stand third.
Bringing up the rear was comedian Lilly Singh who earned US$10 million. Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox were ninth after taking home US$11 million from their channel Smosh.