The short video battle is being fought by all social media giants, and Google is making some progress against TikTok and Instagram. During its most recent earnings call, the search engine giant said that YouTube Shorts had surpassed 50 billion daily views. The firm originally stated 30 billion daily views as part of its Q1 2022 earnings.
Even if the growth rate is remarkable, shorts get fewer views than Instagram and Facebook. According to Meta’s report from last October, reels received 140 billion daily views across social networks.
The YouTube platform has been encouraging people to watch shorts, just like other sites. The company launched “Shorts” on TV in November. A similar attempt was made by TikTok in 2021 to make its app available on big-screen devices, including the Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, and several LG and Samsung smart TVs.
According to data from last year, 1.5 billion signed-in users of YouTube watch Shorts each month. According to TikTok, it will have 1 billion monthly active users in 2021. Instagram, in contrast, has more than 2 billion users. Although it is difficult to avoid seeing short films if you log into Instagram, the firm has not disclosed how many people watch Reels.
Although the number of short video views is increasing, Google will also need to monetize those views. Youtube generated $7.96 billion in revenue in Q4 2022, an 8% decrease from $8.63 billion in Q4 2021. The business reported that YouTube Music and Premium has more than 80 million subscribers worldwide as of November 2022. However, it didn’t say how much of YouTube’s revenue comes from subscriptions.
A new initiative by YouTube to pay Shorts creators a portion of ad income was launched on 1st February. More artists might be encouraged to produce original content for the platform as a result. The video site also started experimenting with commerce and affiliate marketing services with Shorts in November.
Philipp Schindler, a chief business officer of Google, stated that the company is “pleased with our continuing progress in early monetization” during the results call. According to Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer of the firm, “continuous increase in Shorts engagement and monetization” is a top priority for YouTube.
The top brass at Meta listed Instagram Reels and the company’s algorithmic recommendation system as its main goals in the upcoming months, echoing the attitude expressed by Google’s executives.
