Research
Short-form video statistics for 2026
49 figures on YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook Reels, LinkedIn video, video podcasts, viewing habits and captions. Every one links to its primary source: the platform's own statements, earnings calls, or independent research from Pew, the Reuters Institute, Ofcom, Edison Research and the WHO.
Checked 21 October 2026. Company figures are labelled as such. See our editorial standards.
YouTube Shorts statistics
Figures from Alphabet's earnings remarks and YouTube's own blog and help pages.
YouTube Shorts averages more than 200 billion views a day.
YouTube changed how Shorts views are counted in March 2025, so don't compare this with older daily-view figures.
Source: Alphabet Q2 2025 earnings remarks (Sundar Pichai) · 23 July 2025
In the US, Shorts now earn as much revenue per watch hour as traditional in-stream video on YouTube.
Source: Alphabet Q2 2025 earnings remarks · 23 July 2025
More than 10 million channels publish Shorts every day, as of March 2026.
Source: Alphabet Q1 2026 earnings remarks · 29 April 2026
YouTube Shorts has more than 2 billion logged-in users a month.
The latest official monthly-user figure for Shorts; newer statements give daily views instead.
Source: Google Marketing Live 2024 · 21 May 2024
Since October 15, 2024, Shorts can be up to 3 minutes long, for square or vertical videos.
Source: YouTube Official Blog · 3 October 2024
Since August 24, 2026, YouTube counts a view from the first frame in every format. The older definition is now called an engaged view.
Source: YouTube Official Blog · 19 August 2026
Creators in the Shorts revenue-sharing program keep 45% of the revenue allocated to them, whether or not their Short uses music.
Source: YouTube Help: Shorts monetization policies · undated page
From February 1, 2027, channels need 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days to share in Shorts ad and Premium revenue. The YouTube Partner Program has more than 3 million creators.
Source: YouTube Official Blog · 10 August 2026
YouTube says it paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies over the four years to January 2026.
Reported by YouTube; not independently audited.
Source: Neal Mohan, YouTube CEO letter 2026 · 21 January 2026
In December 2025, more than 6 million viewers a day watched at least 10 minutes of auto-dubbed content on YouTube.
Source: Neal Mohan, YouTube CEO letter 2026 · 21 January 2026
TikTok statistics
TikTok publishes few user numbers, so these come from its US joint venture, congressional testimony and independent surveys.
TikTok's US joint venture says more than 200 million Americans and 8.5 million US businesses use TikTok.
Source: TikTok USDS Joint Venture · 30 July 2026
TikTok told the US Congress in March 2023 that more than 1 billion people use it worldwide. It hasn't published a more precise global figure.
Source: Written testimony of TikTok CEO Shou Chew · 23 March 2023
24% of US adults use TikTok every day, and 47% of adults aged 18 to 29 do.
Source: Pew Research Center: Americans' Social Media Use 2025 · 20 November 2025
TikTok is the social media brand Americans aged 12 to 34 use most.
Source: Edison Research: The Infinite Dial 2026 · March 2026
In the UK, TikTok reached 56% of online adults in May 2025, and its average daily adult audience grew from 7.6 million to 10.4 million in a year.
Source: Ofcom: Online Nation 2025 · 10 December 2025
Instagram Reels and Facebook Reels statistics
From Meta's earnings calls, where Mark Zuckerberg and Meta's executives report usage, and Instagram's creator blog.
Reels reached an annual revenue run rate of more than $50 billion in the third quarter of 2025.
Source: Meta Q3 2025 earnings call · 29 October 2025
Time spent watching video on Instagram grew more than 30% year over year in the third quarter of 2025.
Source: Meta Q3 2025 earnings call · 29 October 2025
Instagram has more than 3 billion monthly users (Q3 2025) and more than 2 billion daily users (Q2 2026).
Source: Meta Q3 2025 and Q2 2026 earnings calls · 29 July 2026
US watch time on Instagram Reels grew more than 30% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Source: Meta Q4 2025 earnings call · 28 January 2026
Nearly 10% of the Reels viewed each day were made in Meta's Edits app, as of the fourth quarter of 2025.
Source: Meta Q4 2025 earnings call · 28 January 2026
Hundreds of millions of people a day watch AI-translated videos on Meta's apps, in nine supported languages.
Source: Meta Q4 2025 earnings call · 28 January 2026
Video time on Facebook grew 9% year over year worldwide, and more than 10% in the US and Canada, in the second quarter of 2026.
Source: Meta Q2 2026 earnings call · 29 July 2026
Since January 2025, Instagram recommends Reels up to 3 minutes long, up from 90 seconds.
Source: Instagram Creators blog · 21 January 2025
LinkedIn video statistics
LinkedIn reports video growth through Microsoft's quarterly earnings calls.
Video was LinkedIn's fastest-growing format in mid-2024, with uploads up 34% year over year.
Source: Microsoft FY24 Q4 earnings call · 30 July 2024
Total video viewership on LinkedIn grew 36% year over year in the quarter to September 2024.
Source: Microsoft FY25 Q1 earnings call · 30 October 2024
Time spent watching video on LinkedIn grew 36% year over year in the quarter to March 2025.
Source: Microsoft FY25 Q3 earnings call · 30 April 2025
Video podcast statistics
Podcasts are now watched as much as heard, which makes them the biggest source of long video to clip.
More than 1 billion people a month watch podcast content on YouTube, as of January 2025.
Source: YouTube Official Blog · 26 February 2025
Viewers watched more than 700 million hours of podcasts on YouTube on TV screens in October 2025, up from 400 million a year earlier.
Source: YouTube Official Blog · 18 December 2025
58% of Americans aged 12 and over listened to or watched a podcast in the past month, a record high.
Source: Edison Research: The Infinite Dial 2026 · March 2026
More than 500 million Spotify users have streamed a video podcast, up nearly 50% in a year.
Source: Spotify Newsroom (Investor Day 2026) · 21 May 2026
How people watch: news and viewing habits
Independent surveys from Pew Research Center, the Reuters Institute and Ofcom.
One in five US adults (20%) regularly get news on TikTok, up from 3% in 2020. Among adults aged 18 to 29 it's 39%.
Source: Pew Research Center (survey of 5,166 US adults, August 2026) · 19 October 2026
53% of US TikTok users say they regularly get news there, up from 22% in 2020.
Source: Pew Research Center · 19 October 2026
34% of US adults regularly get news on YouTube, 23% on Instagram and 20% on TikTok.
Source: Pew Research Center: Social Media and News Fact Sheet · 19 October 2026
84% of US adults use YouTube and 48% use it every day. Among adults aged 18 to 29, 66% use it daily.
Source: Pew Research Center: Americans' Social Media Use 2025 · 20 November 2025
About three in four US teens use YouTube every day, 61% use TikTok daily and 55% use Instagram daily.
Source: Pew Research Center: Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025 · 9 December 2025
For the first time, social and video networks are the most widely used way to get news online across the 48 markets surveyed: 54%, against 51% for news sites and apps.
Source: Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026 · 16 June 2026
77% of people across those 48 markets watch online news video each week.
Source: Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026 · 16 June 2026
55% of people who watch news video on TikTok mainly watch clips under 2 minutes long.
Source: Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026 · 16 June 2026
UK adults spend an average of 4 hours 30 minutes online a day, and 51 minutes of it on YouTube.
Source: Ofcom: Online Nation 2025 · 10 December 2025
Captions and accessibility statistics
Why captions matter beyond sound-off scrolling, with the standards that define good ones.
About 1.5 billion people worldwide live with some degree of hearing loss.
Source: World Health Organization · February 2024
430 million people, over 5% of the world's population, need rehabilitation for disabling hearing loss, and nearly 2.5 billion are projected to have some hearing loss by 2050.
Source: World Health Organization fact sheet · 3 March 2026
About 15% of American adults, 37.5 million people, report some trouble hearing.
Source: NIDCD (US National Institutes of Health) · 20 September 2024
63% of US adults under 30 prefer subtitles on when watching TV in a language they know, against 38% of all adults.
Source: YouGov (US) · 11 August 2023
Captions for prerecorded audio in video are required at WCAG's lowest conformance level, Level A.
Source: W3C: Understanding WCAG 2.2, Success Criterion 1.2.2 · undated page
Netflix's English subtitle standard allows up to 42 characters a line, two lines, and 20 characters a second for adult content (17 for children's).
Source: Netflix Partner Help Center: English (USA) Timed Text Style Guide · undated page
The BBC's subtitle guidelines allow up to three lines on vertical 9:16 video, with about 25 characters a line as the vertical equivalent of a 37-character landscape line.
Source: BBC Subtitle Guidelines, version 1.2.5 · March 2026
Creator economy statistics
The money around short-form video, with the source's own caveats.
Goldman Sachs projected in 2023 that the creator economy could reach $480 billion by 2027, from $250 billion in 2023, with about 50 million creators worldwide.
A projection, not a measurement.
Source: Goldman Sachs Research · 19 April 2023
Goldman Sachs estimated that only about 4% of creators earn more than $100,000 a year, and that brand deals make up about 70% of creator revenue.
Source: Goldman Sachs Research · 19 April 2023
YouTube says its creative ecosystem contributed $55 billion to US GDP in 2024 and supported more than 490,000 full-time jobs.
YouTube's own figure; the letter doesn't describe the method.
Source: Neal Mohan, YouTube CEO letter 2026 · 21 January 2026
What we left out, and why
Plenty of widely shared numbers didn't make it. The most common is that "69% of people watch video with the sound off": we could only find it quoted second-hand, not in the original study, so it isn't here. Neither are average engagement rates, "best time to post" figures or predictions from vendors' own blogs.
If you know a primary source we've missed, or a figure here has been updated, email hello@reeltopus.com.
Citing this page
Cite the original source next to each figure. If this page helped you find it, a link is appreciated:
Reeltopus, "Short-form video statistics for 2026", https://reeltopus.com/short-form-video-statistics
Questions
How many views do YouTube Shorts get a day?
More than 200 billion a day on average, according to Alphabet's July 2025 earnings remarks. YouTube changed how Shorts views are counted in March 2025, so older figures aren't directly comparable.
How many people use TikTok?
TikTok's US joint venture says more than 200 million Americans use it. TikTok's last official global figure was more than 1 billion people, given to the US Congress in March 2023.
How long can YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels be?
Shorts can be up to 3 minutes long since October 15, 2024. Instagram has recommended Reels up to 3 minutes long since January 2025.
How many people need captions?
The World Health Organization says about 1.5 billion people live with some hearing loss, and 430 million need rehabilitation for disabling hearing loss. Many more turn captions on by choice: 63% of US adults under 30 prefer subtitles on, per YouGov.
Can I use these statistics?
Yes. Please cite the original source linked next to each figure, and link to this page if it helped you find it.
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