YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts has over 1.5 billion users

Ben Schoon | Jun 16 2022 - 11:29 am PT

As TikTok has taken over the internet, YouTube Shorts has become a focus for the platform in growing its userbase. Since its launch, YouTube Shorts has now amassed over 1.5 billion users.

YouTube says this week that YouTube Shorts has amassed 1.5 billion users who are active on a monthly basis. Those are users who are logged in when watching the short-form, and makes up 75% of YouTube’s userbase of 2 billion.

Of course, this hasn’t happened by accident.

YouTube has put many resources into building up Shorts over the past two years, leading to huge view counts.

Last year, a $100 million “Shorts Fund” was opened up to pay creators for viral videos, and also expanded Shorts worldwide. YouTube also launched an ad campaign for Shorts directly on competing platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels.

More recently, YouTube has expanded Shorts to tablets and the web. Google Discover, a content recommendation platform, has also started highlighting Shorts to users.

But this also comes right as YouTube Shorts is monetizing its huge number of users. In April, the platform announced that ads would start showing up in between Shorts, and in recent weeks, we’ve seen those ads showing up more often.

YouTube also brings out that Shorts has built up creators that are making videos for more formats, saying in a press release (via The Verge):

This expansion has launched a new trend on the platform: ‘the rise of the multiformat creator’

More YouTube creators have been using Shorts to add supplementary content, or advertise their longer videos by separating bits of that content for short-form videos. YouTube has made this easier, with clipping and other tools for creating Shorts.

It’s clear at this point that YouTube Shorts is a big part of the platform going forward, and users seem to be fully on board with that future.