TikTok rival YouTube Shorts announces a staggering 1.5 billion monthly viewers

Short-format videos are the next advanced form of procrastination... or just an easy way to kill time (depending on who you ask), and TikTok has proven short videos are ready to take the world by storm. YouTube, of course, wouldn't like to lose out on the fun, and two years ago launched its own answer to TikTok: YouTube Shorts. Now, TechCrunch reports the platform has amassed a staggering 1.5 billion monthly viewers.

YouTube reportedly announces 1.5 billion monthly logged-in users for Shorts, ready to take on TikTok

Curiously enough, TikTok reported 1 billion monthly users in September 2021 (it hasn't announced any numbers more recently). But it's reasonable to assume TikTok's audience has also grown in the past ten months or so. Current predictions for TikTok's monthly users are that the number could climb to 1.5 billion sometime this year.

While we're unable to directly crown a winner in this fight just yet, one thing is clear enough: people enjoy watching short-form videos (a lot!).

YouTube also used the spotlight to highlight that YouTube Shorts have the ability to lead viewers to the creator's long-form channels. In fact, YouTube seems to still hold a lot of value in long-form content and seems to not be thinking about making its platform entirely centered on short videos, unlike TikTok.

TikTok, on the other hand, has been gradually increasing the time duration of videos allowed to the platform - a few months ago, this limit jumped all the way to 10 minutes, and, as TechCrunch rightfully observes, this could totally be considered as an attempt to lure longer-video creators away from YouTube and into TikTok.

YouTube's vice president of the Americas, Tara Walpert Levy, said to TechCrunch that long-term videos still remain the best way for creators to engage with their viewers and build long-term relationships. However, she did appreciate that Shorts offer an exciting way for creators to introduce themselves to new audiences.

Levy also stated that channels that upload both short and long videos tend to see better overall watch time and subscriber growth. No numbers to confirm the claim mentioned above have been published, so we have to take this with a grain of salt for now.

From all of this, it seems YouTube still holds value in its longer videos and doesn't consider switching to an entire TikTok-like viewing experience. But Shorts does prove to bring in some good results for the company. The bottom line: short-from videos are not losing their appeal any time soon.