YouTube Shorts containing content sampled from long-form videos generated over generated 100 billion views in April 2022.
This was disclosed by the company during a press briefing which also coincided with its one-year anniversary in Nigeria. It added that Shorts was being watched by over 1.5 billion logged-in users every month.
The firm stated that with the launch of Shorts, artist and creator channels uploading both Shorts and long-form were seeing better overall watch time and subscriber growth relative to that only uploading long-form.
It said its mission was to give everyone a voice and help creators grow their audiences and be inspired by new video formats.
YouTube’s Chief Product Officer, Neal Mohan, said, “Shorts have become an essential part of the YouTube experience for our creators and viewers.
“Now being watched by over 1.5B logged in users every month, the product is growing thanks to the creativity of our community. While we’re still at the beginning of our journey with Shorts, we look forward to continuing to innovate the product so our creators can continue to express themselves, connect with their audiences, and increase their reach and revenue opportunities on the platform.”
The firm said at the heart of its were the voices of our creators and artists. It said when it introduced Shorts and knew it was bringing an important new format to the YouTube repertoire.
It stated, “For artists, the path to success has never been more demanding, so we’re designing products like Shorts to make YouTube THE place for them to connect with their fans and grow long-term, sustainable music careers.
“We’ve been hard at work innovation and refining the product features our community knows and loves to incorporate this new video format into the broader YouTube experience.”
YouTube’s Global Head of Music, Lyor Cohen, added, “Everybody knows that our mission at YouTube is to become the leading revenue generator for the music industry.
“Money is great, but it’s not enough. Building artist fandom is equally important. We want YouTube to be the place for artists to connect and create meaningful relationships with their fans and grow long-term, sustainable music careers; Shorts, combined with long-form video, is proving to be a critical way to do that.
“It’s our job to make sure that once fans find their life’s soundtrack on Shorts, they are met with prompts that encourage them to dive deeper into an artist’s repertoire. YouTube is the only platform that can bring that experience to reality and we are all in on making it happen.”
