YouTube dominates TikTok in the short-form video niche. According to the company’s CEO, Neil Mohan, the number of views on Shorts has increased by 186% in a year to 200 billion daily. What is the reason?
YouTube dominates TikTok in the short-form video niche. According to the company’s CEO, Neil Mohan, the number of views on Shorts has increased by 186% in a year to 200 billion daily. What is the reason?
«Today, I’m excited to share a new milestone: YouTube Shorts is now averaging over 200 billion views per day,» Mohan said at the 2025 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Back in March 2024, Shorts were averaging 70 billion daily views, Dexerto notes.
But even this figure significantly outweighs TikTok’s daily views, which according to Sendshort is 1 billion. This means that YouTube is not just ahead, but also dominates its biggest competitor in the short video niche.
Interestingly, on March 31, 2025, YouTube changed the way it counts «views,» following TikTok’s example. Under the new method, even when users swipe up on a video immediately, it still counts as a «view».
Mohan also highlighted another major shift in how people consume content on the platform. More than 1 billion hours of YouTube are watched on TV screens every day, showing how far the platform has expanded beyond phones and computers.
One of the reasons for the popularity of YouTube Shorts was also the saga surrounding the ban and sale of TikTok in the US, which sometimes leads to funny situations.
In the spring of 2025, when the situation surrounding the TikTok ban escalated again, many content creators began to consider YouTube Shorts as an alternative platform. This did not sit well with TikTok’s loyal fans, who were convinced that YouTube offered inferior functionality and content. They launched a campaign to «colonize YouTube Shorts» in an attempt to fill the platform with trashy content.
Recently, US President Donald Trump announced that a «group of very wealthy people» is bidding for the long-awaited acquisition of TikTok in the US.
«By the way, we have a buyer on TikTok. I think I’m going to need China’s approval, and I think President Xi will probably do that», — Trump said.
He added that he would announce the sale of TikTok in two weeks.
