Social video graduates to the big leagues

Netflix versus TikTok is the battle to watch. Netflix will easily dominate when it comes to viewers and view time. But TikTok’s ad revenue lead will be difficult for Netflix to overcome.

• Short videos aren’t going away. Just over two-thirds of TV content viewers ages 18 to 34 watch short-form videos and other non-TV content daily, according to April 2022 data from Horowitz Research.
• US adults will spend an average of 40 minutes per day watching social videos in 2023, we forecast. That amounts to more than 5% of daily media time.

But US adult viewers will spend more time watching Netflix than users will spend on either TikTok or YouTube through 2024. Netflix also has a sizable lead in total viewers. Its monthly users will top 172 million in the US in 2023, compared with about 102 million for TikTok.

Netflix’s ad revenues will be a fraction of TikTok’s in 2023, however. In its first full year of selling ads, the streamer will generate only $830 million in the US, versus $6.83 billion for TikTok.

Predictions

• YouTube will get squeezed from both sides. It leads in viewers but will face increased competition for ad dollars in 2023 from both streaming platforms and TikTok.
• A major agency will attempt to bring all forms of video buying—including social video—into one group. These have typically been separate, but as video viewing grows across multiple digital platforms, and the need for buying efficiencies grows, we expect to see more unification of video, TV, connected TV (CTV), and social video.