92% Indians Prefer Instagram Reels Over YouTube Shorts: Report

US tech giant Meta's Reels has become the leading short-form video format in India, with 92 percent of users favouring it over competitors, after five years of its launch in the country, a report released on Thursday said.

The Meta-commissioned study surveyed over 3,500 respondents in 33 cities, and 95 per cent of users reported watching Reels daily on Instagram, at least 12 percentage points ahead of other surveyed platforms like YouTube.

Meta reported that Instagram Reels drove 33 percent higher engagement than other surveyed platforms. The study shows that Reels continues to fuel major online trends, from dance challenges, memes, and POVs to GRWM, beauty transitions, and more, the company said in a statement.

"Reels drive cultural conversations, leading consumption across genres, with users watching more content on fashion/trends and styles (up 40 per cent compared to other platforms), beauty and makeup (up 20 per cent compared to other platforms), and music/movies (up 16 per cent compared to other platforms)," the report said.

“India is leading the world in video adoption, and Reels is at the center of this shift. Meta will continue to innovate with AI, support creators, and help businesses unlock the power of short-form video,” said Arun Srinivas, Managing Director and Head, Meta (India).

The report also highlighted Meta’s increasing influence in commerce. Around 80 per cent of surveyed Indians said they discover new brands on Meta platforms.

"Reels ads also deliver two times stronger top-of-mind recall and four times stronger message association compared to long-form video ads, while being 1.5x more effective in driving brand metrics as compared to long-form skippable video ads," the report stated.

"To unlock the full potential of Reels, marketers need to focus on capturing, deepening, and scaling attention by winning attention through social-first creatives designed specifically for the Reels format," the company noted.

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