As of October 2023, YouTube Shorts - the platform's popular short-video feature - had reached over 70 billion daily views. YouTube Shorts rolled out globally in June 2021 and reached 30 billion daily views after one year from its initial launch. The feature was tested first in the Indian market, after the digital ban on the ByteDance-owned TikTok in the country.

During the first quarter of 2024, Huge YouTube accounts, which had over 50,000 followers, posted approximately one video daily, and almost **** Shorts per day. In comparison, Big accounts, which counted between 10,001 and 50,000 followers, posted *** long-format videos daily on average, as well as almost *** YouTube Shorts daily. Tiny accounts, which had a following of less than 500 users, posted *** YouTube Short approximately every **** days, or **** Shorts per day.

In 2023, YouTube Shorts was estimated to have around 153 million monthly viewers in the United States. Launched in 2021, Shorts have quickly become a popular format for both YouTube users and creators, with the company reporting two billon global monthly active viewers in July 2023. The format is estimated to reach 185 million U.S. viewers per month by 2026.

Introduction

YouTube Shorts statistics: YouTube Shorts is currently everywhere, and if you are genuinely committed to expanding your reach in 2025, it is essential that you do not overlook it. Billions of views are generated each day, creators are achieving rapid success, and brands are eagerly participating to connect with new audiences.

YouTube Shorts has swiftly established itself as a primary platform for short videos, transforming the way creators present their content and interact with their audience. As an increasing number of individuals seek brief, engaging content, YouTube Shorts is not only influencing new viewing patterns but also providing opportunities for creators to expand their reach and generate income.

At present, the platform has approximately 2 billion monthly active users and around 70 million daily active users. Especially, a majority of Shorts viewers are male, with nearly 40% of them aged between 25 and 44.

Launched first in India after the TikTok ban in August 2020, YouTube Shorts rolled out globally in June 2021. The feature, which is accessible via the YouTube app, reached two billion monthly logged-in users as of July 2023. YouTube has been heavily promoting its short-video format platform since its global launch, including redirecting users automatically to Shorts when the YouTube app is opened and launching the YouTube Shorts Funds to entice creators' participation. In 2022, user and travel vlogger Shangerdanger took the crown for the most popular Short on YouTube, with his video “Diver cracks Egg at 45 ft Deep".

TikTok versus Reels: competitors’ comparison Launched in September 2016 in China as Douyin, TikTok went on to become of the most engaging social media platforms for global users, challenging mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube in their primary markets such as the United States, Brazil, and Japan. TikTok’s popularity exploded between 2019 and 2020, as the work was experiencing the effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. Reels, Instagram’s in-app short video experience, debuted in 2020 as Facebook (now Meta Platforms) bet on the short-video feature to improve users’ engagement. While videos were an already popular format on Facebook and Instagram, social short videos soon became an even more popular format with users. As of June 2022, the average video viewing rate for Reels on Instagram was 2.54 percent, while for videos was of 1.74 percent as of June 2022.

Content is key: creators drive an entire economy As of July 2022, influencers on TikTok and YouTube generate the largest share of video views, over 90 percent, while content produced by media companies and brands constitute only a smaller part of the video views generated on the two video platforms. As content creators are emerging even more clearly as the backbone of social media marketing and advertising, it is not a surprise that an entire economy devoted to their needs and presence has developed in recent years. In 2022, companies supporting the creators’ economy by offering merchandising services had an annual average revenue of over 500 million U.S. dollars, while companies overseeing subscription services generated approximately 300 million U.S. dollars.

Introduction

YouTube Statistics: YouTube dominates the digital landscape with 2.70 billion monthly active users among the world population in mid-2025, making it the second-largest search engine after Google and the second social platform, following Facebook, across the world.

People watch more than 1 billion hours of video on YouTube, that’s a million years of attention span. With over 20 million new videos uploaded to the platform every day, the YouTube content ecosystem is practically endless. Short-form video lovers have not been ignored.

With an astonishing 70 billion views a day on YouTube shorts, these viewers are generating a new level of interactions and engagement across the platform. Of course, mobile dominates; 63% of watch time happens on mobile devices. With over 100 million subscribers to YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, in addition to free, YouTube is indeed a premium entertainment platform.

As of February 2025, India was the country with the largest YouTube audience by far, with approximately 491 million users engaging with the popular social video platform. The United States followed, with around 253 million YouTube viewers. Brazil came in third, with 144 million users watching content on YouTube. The United Kingdom saw around 54.8 million internet users engaging with the platform in the examined period. What country has the highest percentage of YouTube users? In July 2024, the United Arab Emirates was the country with the highest YouTube penetration worldwide, as around 94 percent of the country's digital population engaged with the service. In 2024, YouTube counted around 100 million paid subscribers for its YouTube Music and YouTube Premium services. YouTube mobile markets In 2024, YouTube was among the most popular social media platforms worldwide. In terms of revenues, the YouTube app generated approximately 28 million U.S. dollars in revenues in the United States in January 2024, as well as 19 million U.S. dollars in Japan.

This dataset provides estimated YouTube RPM (Revenue Per Mille) ranges for different niches in 2025, based on ad revenue earned per 1,000 monetized views.

On June 17, 2016, Korean education brand Pinkfong released their video "Baby Shark Dance", and the rest is history. In January 2021, Baby Shark Dance became the first YouTube video to surpass 10 billion views, after snatching the crown of most-viewed YouTube video of all time from the former record holder "Despacito" one year before. "Baby Shark Dance" currently has over 15 billion lifetime views on YouTube. Music videos on YouTube “Baby Shark Dance” might be the current record-holder in terms of total views, but Korean artist Psy’s “Gangnam Style” video remained on the top spot for longest (1,689 days or 4.6 years) before ceding its spot to its successor. With figures like these, it comes as little surprise that the majority of the most popular videos on YouTube are music videos. Since 2010, all but one the most-viewed videos on YouTube have been music videos, signifying the platform’s shift in focus from funny, viral videos to professionally produced content. As of 2022, about 40 percent of the U.S. digital music audience uses YouTube Music. Popular video content on YouTube Music fans are also highly engaged audiences and it is not uncommon for music videos to garner significant amounts of traffic within the first 24 hours of release. Other popular types of videos that generate lots of views after their first release are movie trailers, especially superhero movies related to the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). The first official trailer for the upcoming film “Avengers: Endgame” generated 289 million views within the first 24 hours of release, while the movie trailer for Spider-Man: No Way Home generated over 355 views on the first day from release, making it the most viral movie trailer.

As of February 2025, the United States was the region with the largest TikTok audience by far, with almost ****** million users engaging with the popular social video platform. Indonesia followed, with around ***** million TikTok users. Brazil came in third, with almost ***** million users on TikTok watching short-videos. From Reels to Shorts: social short video takes the internet Between 2021 and 2022 some of the most popular social media platforms have been adding short-video features on the heels of TikTok’s popularity. YouTube Shorts, which rolled out to the global market in June 2021, reached *** billion monthly active logged-in users in 2023. In comparison, Instagram’s short-video format Reels, which launched in August 2020, presented a higher view rate than regular videos on the platform between June 2021 and June 2022, as well as a higher likes rate than other content types on Instagram. TikTok business model TikTok is owned by the Beijing-based ByteDance, along with the short-video app Douyin (TikTok’s version for the Chinese market), video platform Xigua, and popular news app Toutiao. While the products intended for domestic market consumption operate in the Chinese digital ecosystem and have a plurality of established monetization methods such as a live-shopping events hosted by famous influencers, TikTok’s main revenue stream comes from online advertising. In 2022, TikTok was estimated to have generated around **** billion U.S. dollars worldwide via online advertising.

Seen the popularity of the YouTube platform among younger users and children, kids-themed YouTube channels are among the most popular types of content on the platform. As of March 2024, ChuChu TV Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs was the most subscribed kids' content channel, with approximately 94.7 million subscribers. Spanish-language channel El Reino Infantil ranked second with approximately 67.5 million subscribers, while Masha and the Bear ranked third with 53.3 million subscribers. Kids on YouTube According to a survey of global parents conducted in September 2022, over half of the respondents reported that watching YouTube videos was a popular online activity their children chose to engage with. In the United States, children were using the YouTube app to watch content for over one hour daily on average in 2023. Children media consumption As of May 2022, software, audio, and video content were the most popular categories for global children to interact with online, with approximately 44 percent of younger users visiting and engaging with these content formats. Between 52 percent and 55 percent of children in India, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa were reported visiting software, audio, and video websites between 2020 and 2021.

Reaction video channel Panda Short was the most subscribed YouTube channel in Sweden as of ************, with over **** million subscribers. Second in the ranking was Tim Bergling, who was better known as Avicii, with **** million people subscribed to the electronic musician’s channel. RobTopGames followed with **** million subscribers. DIY/beauty channel Narins Beauty ranked fourth, with **** million subscribers. YouTube usage in Sweden According to a 2023 survey of internet users in Sweden, seven out of every 10 respondents reported using social networks such as YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat, this highlights the popularity of media-sharing platforms in the country.The number of YouTube users in Sweden is projected to increase by ** percent, reaching approximately *** million viewers in 2025.  Youngest generations in Sweden are all YouTube users As of *************, children aged between ***** and ** in Sweden used YouTube mainly for watching entertaining and fun content. In 2022, around ** percent of Swedish viewers who were born in the ***** used YouTube on a daily basis, while the same percentage of viewers born in the ***** watched content on the platform daily.

As of February 2025, Saudi Arabia was the country with the highest YouTube penetration, at approximately 95.8 percent. Israel ranked second with a reach of 93.3 percent, followed by Singapore with a reach of 91.8 percent. The global YouTube reach in February 2025 was 39 percent.

As of February 2025, ** percent of the YouTube global audience was composed of male users aged between 25 and 34 years, as well as around *** percent of female users of the same age. Male users aged between 35 and 44 years on the platform accounted for **** percent of the total, while women of the same age using YouTube had an audience share of *** percent in the examined period. YouTube’s global popularity The number of monthly active users on YouTube reached almost *** billion in April 2024, making it the second most popular social network on the internet. The platform's popularity spans all over the world, with India and the United States having the largest YouTube audiences. As of April 2024, the audience of YouTube in India was around *** million, while the United States recorded a YouTube audience of around *** million users.

YouTube’s digital revenues One of YouTube's leading monetization methods include advertising, with the company generating around **** billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter of 2024. Additionally, the platform generated over ** million dollars in the United States through in-app purchases, as well as over **** million U.S. dollars in revenues from mobile app users in Japan.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, TikTok generated around 186 million downloads from users worldwide. Initially launched in China first by ByteDance as Douyin, the short-video format was popularized by TikTok and took over the global social media environment in 2020. In the first quarter of 2020, TikTok downloads peaked at over 313.5 million worldwide, up by 62.3 percent compared to the first quarter of 2019.

              TikTok interactions: is there a magic formula for content success?

              In 2024, TikTok registered an engagement rate of approximately 4.64 percent on video content hosted on its platform. During the same examined year, the social video app recorded over 1,100 interactions on average. These interactions were primarily composed of likes, while only recording less than 20 comments per piece of content on average in 2024.
              The platform has been actively monitoring the issue of fake interactions, as it removed around 236 million fake likes during the first quarter of 2024. Though there is no secret formula to get the maximum of these metrics, recommended video length can possibly contribute to the success of content on TikTok.
              It was recommended that tiny TikTok accounts with up to 500 followers post videos that are around 2.6 minutes long as of the first quarter of 2024. While, the ideal video duration for huge TikTok accounts with over 50,000 followers was 7.28 minutes. The average length of TikTok videos posted by the creators in 2024 was around 43 seconds.

              What’s trending on TikTok Shop?

              Since its launch in September 2023, TikTok Shop has become one of the most popular online shopping platforms, offering consumers a wide variety of products. In 2023, TikTok shops featuring beauty and personal care items sold over 370 million products worldwide.
              TikTok shops featuring womenswear and underwear, as well as food and beverages, followed with 285 and 138 million products sold, respectively. Similarly, in the United States market, health and beauty products were the most-selling items,
              accounting for 85 percent of sales made via the TikTok Shop feature during the first month of its launch. In 2023, Indonesia was the market with the largest number of TikTok Shops, hosting over 20 percent of all TikTok Shops. Thailand and Vietnam followed with 18.29 and 17.54 percent of the total shops listed on the famous short video platform, respectively.

Social video platform TikTok made significant gains in popularity in the Netherlands between 2020 and 2023. In 2023, there were approximately four million TikTok users in the Netherlands, up from three million in the previous year. Users aged 20 to 24 years accounted for the biggest share of TikTok’s audience in the country, recording approximately 850,000 users in 2023.

Mobile social As of the end of 2022, mobile social media were the most engaging app category for users in the Netherlands. On average, Dutch users was reported spending 65 minutes per day on social apps, compared to 26 minutes spent interacting with casual gaming apps, and 14 daily minutes spent on shopping apps on a daily basis. Mobile-first communication and chat apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat ranked among the most popular social platforms among Dutch users in the third quarter of 2022. Social video app TikTok has become increasingly more popular, reaching four million users in 2023.

Most popular Dutch content creators With 14 million followers and several years of activity within the global beauty content community, Nikkie Tutorials was the second most popular Dutch content creator on YouTube in February 2023. With the rise of TikTok and short-video features like Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, video has become one of the most engaging formats for content creators to connect with their audiences in the Netherlands as in the rest of the digital market. As of September 2022, online Dutch influencer Sherell Martini reportedly had 4.84 million TikTok followers, while online personality and hair influencer Quinity Mirjam recorded over three million followers.

In December 2023, there were nearly ** thousand unique visitors to the short video platform Moj in India. There was a decrease in number of unique visitors during the recorded period. However, it is worth noting that Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts dominate India's short-form video market.