Shorts: YouTube's rival to TikTok, introduced in India last year, made available worldwide now

YouTube Shorts, a TikTok-like short form video app that was launched first in India last year, is now rolling out globally.

YouTube Shorts, which is still in beta, will be available "across more than 100 countries around the world where YouTube is available," reports The Verge.

YouTube Shorts is playing catchup to TikTok as the short-form video platform of choice, but Google's service is pushing Shorts' integration with the wider YouTube ecosystem as a key selling point, the report said.

The platform recently added the ability for Shorts creators to sample audio from YouTube videos and says it is exploring ways to offer quick links from Shorts to YouTube videos they've taken samples from.

In April, the platform announced that it continues to gain popularity with over 6.5 billion daily views as of March, up from 3.5 billion at the end of 2020.

YouTube had rolled out the Shorts app feature in India in September last year.

Shorts is a new short-form video experience right on YouTube for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones.

The company later rolled out the video streaming service on its platform in the US in Beta.