Photo credit: Riverside.fm
As a TikTok ban in the U.S. looms, YouTube Shorts’ growth has begun to outpace TikTok, thanks to YouTube’s massive popularity in the U.S. but also as competitors copy YouTube’s features.
According to Luminate data, YouTube Shorts growth among music listeners is climbing to catch up with TikTok, which remains the most popular platform. In Q2 2023, about 33% of music listeners reported using TikTok, and the same figure will likely hold in Q2 2024. However, YouTube Shorts growth is surging from 28% in Q3 2023 to about 31% in Q2 2024, indicating that the platform is growing while TikTok is stagnating.
Both YouTube Shorts and TikTok remain popular among music listeners, while Facebook and Instagram Reels have stagnated among people who listen to music on their platforms. TikTok remains the most used short-form video platform among music listeners, but YouTube Shorts is growing rapidly by adopting more of TikTok’s features.
What’s even more interesting here is that Luminate poll respondents reported spending more time on some form of short-form video than watching sports, reading, or listening to podcasts. Listening to music was said to be what about 13% of respondents, followed by short-form video at 8%, watching sports at 6%, and reading at 5%. About 3% of respondents said they listen to podcasts in their free time, far behind the appeal of short-form video.
The data suggests that TikTok may not be the top platform among music listeners heading into 2025, even if a ban is not imposed. YouTube is the second largest website on the Internet after Google, with approximately 113 billion monthly visitors. It is also the second most popular social network after Facebook, with an average of 2.5 billion monthly active users. Daily views of YouTube Shorts are expected to reach 70 billion in 2023, and approximately 750,000 YouTube Shorts creators are earning revenue on the platform.
In the US, YouTube Shorts is estimated to have around 153 million monthly users (TikTok has 170 million), and is projected to reach 164.5 million by the end of 2024. Will YouTube Shorts eventually surpass TikTok in the realm of short-form video relevance? It could possibly happen within the next 18 months, depending on how the current situation with TikTok and the US government unfolds.
