YouTube Launches TikTok-Clone Shorts In India, Taking Advantage Of The Ban On Chinese Apps

On Monday, YouTube announced Shorts, a video feature that aims to be the direct competitor of TikTok.

According to the Google-owned video platform, Shorts’ early beta will be launched in India shortly before coming to other countries.

YouTube has a good reason to choose India for the launch of its short-video feature. In June, the Indian government banned TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps siting reasons of India’s integrity and sovereignty,

Before the ban, around 30% of TikTok downloads came from India, according to reports from Sensor Tower.

Instagram’s Reels, a TikTok clone, said last month that its user base in India is growing fast. With YouTube launching its own champion to the huge market left behind by the Chinese short video sharing platform, Instagram now faces another fierce competitor.

Shorts will be in the YouTube app and there is not much of a difference between the feature and the app it takes inspiration from – TikTok. The most noticeable distinction is the maximum duration of videos, which is a minute on the Chinese app and 15 seconds on Shorts.

The feature is available for Android phones at launch but YouTube said it would expand to iOS and other nations soon.

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