TikTok has revealed that they are increasing their maximum video length to 10 minutes, which will make TikTok a more direct competitor to YouTube. A spokesperson from TikTok stated, “Today, we’re excited to start rolling out the ability to upload videos that are up to 10 minutes, which we hope would unleash even more creative possibilities for our creators around the world.” This news came after their announcement last summer that they were extending their maximum video length to 3 minutes, which surpassed their previous 60-second limit.

TikTok and YouTube were already in competition with one another, but this announcement is the beginning of an even closer contention between the two platforms. YouTube remains the biggest streaming platform with over 2 billion users playing music on its service every month. However, TikTok announced that it already has over 1 billion monthly active users and many predict that number will increase to 1.5 billion this year. To compete with TikTok, YouTube launched its platform “Shorts” in September 2020. Shorts’ videos can only be a maximum of 60 seconds long.

Not only are YouTube and TikTok competing for creators and users, but they are also in direct competition for advertising revenue. In Q4 2021, YouTube generated approximately $8.63 billion in advertising revenue and TikTok generated approximately $4 billion. Many are anxiously awaiting the outcome of TikTok’s rollout to see if TikTok’s longer video capability will assist in boosting their users and seriously challenge YouTube in their market dominance.