YouTube has launched a new website for mobile devices that offers a faster and better video experience for users in the UK, Europe and the Middle East, the site's owner Google announced on Tuesday.

The new site m.youtube.com, built on the HTML5 standard and accessed through a phone's web browser, also has enhanced features to enable easy sharing of video links on social networking sites.

YouTube's consumption on mobile devices has grown considerably, said Google. An hour of footage is uploaded to the video sharing site from mobile devices every minute, it added.

Playbacks were up 160 per cent in 2009 over the previous year, and YouTube mobile now receives more than 100 million video playbacks a day.

The US version of the mobile site was launched last month.

The new site, which can be accessed through Apple's iPhone or handsets running Google's Android operating system, also features "touch-friendly" elements for touch phones.

The UK is the biggest European consumer of YouTube videos on mobile phones, followed by France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.