YouTube Shorts now has trillions of views in India: CEO Neal Mohan

New Delhi: Google-owned YouTube’s CEO Neal Mohan on Wednesday said that Shorts, which was first launched in India, now has trillions of views in the country and domestic creators are making videos inspired by local trends that go on to define global culture.

Mohan informed that Indian creators are doing more than just sharing stories; they’re exporting Indian culture to the world.

“More than 11,000 Indian channels have over a million subscribers. That’s a 50 per cent increase year over year,” he shared the figures as YouTube hosted its flagship event ‘Brandcast 2024’ in the national capital.

“Times have changed. Now, creators are the new A-listers. Like Prajakta Koli, whose comedy journey on YouTube led to a starring role in a Netflix series and her Bollywood debut. And Diljit Dosanjh, the first Punjabi artist to perform at Coachella,” said Mohan who joined YouTube nine years ago.

The creators and artists have business strategies, writers’ rooms and production teams and are creating programmes that people love to watch.

“And they’re driving growth on YouTube. We’re number one in reach and watch-time in India,” the YouTube CEO said.

Millions of fans come to YouTube to watch their favourite comedians in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, and more.

Fans aren’t just tuning in, they’re showing up and buying tickets to watch comedians perform on stages around the world.

“These channels started in India, and now they’re global… finding audiences everywhere from Australia to the US,” Mohan informed.

Cricket videos had more than 50 billion views over the last year. “This includes all the moments that build community around cricket, like livestream 'watchalongs' of the T20 World Cup win, creators reenacting big IPL matches, and videos that show players’ lives off the field, like a wedding proposal,” Mohan added.

He said that YouTube is the most watched streaming service on connected TVs and “our views on connected TVs in India have quadrupled in the last 3 years”.

“We’ve launched AI tools that empower human creativity. Just last month, we started to roll out Dream Screen here. It lets you create AI-generated backgrounds for Shorts just by typing an idea. It’s pretty awesome,” Mohan said.