Microdrama market size 2026: the main estimates compared

How big is the microdrama market?

Published sizes for the microdrama market fall into four groups that measure different things. China-inclusive global estimates are the largest: Omdia puts global microdrama revenue at $11bn in 2025, forecasts $14bn for 2026, and says China accounts for 83% of global revenue (estimate). Ex-China estimates from Media Partners Asia, Owl & Co and DataEye cover the market outside China. App-store series from Sensor Tower, DataEye and Diandian (点点数据) count in-app purchase spending only. Chinese domestic figures come from the regulator, an industry association and research vendors, in renminbi.

The groups differ in scope and in measure. A China-inclusive total and an ex-China total are separated by the whole of the Chinese market. App-store series leave out web payments and advertising revenue, and the app stores' cut sits between consumer spend and company revenue. Revenue in the category is published on three bases, app-store consumer spend, gross in-app purchase value and company revenue, and they are not comparable with one another.

The tables below keep the groups apart and do not add them together. Figures are third-party estimates unless marked official, company or reported. Every row in the market size table carries its vendor, period and basis.

Global microdrama market size, China included

Two vendors publish a China-inclusive global series. Omdia's runs from $11bn in 2025 to a 2026 forecast of $14bn, about $3bn of it outside China, and to more than $22bn by 2030, when it expects international markets to make up about one third. Media Partners Asia's 2030 forecast is about $26bn, made up of $16.2bn for China and $9.5bn outside it. Both are labelled all-revenue estimates.

The sourced 2030 range is therefore $22bn (Omdia) to $26bn (Media Partners Asia). A figure of $65bn by 2030 also circulates; the sources table lists it among figures that could not be traced to a research vendor.

Global microdrama market estimates, China included

Microdrama market size outside China

Outside China, the estimates differ by measure and by vintage. Media Partners Asia's September 2025 vintage put the ex-China market at $1.4bn in 2024, reaching $9.5bn by 2030 at a 28.4% compound annual growth rate. Its August 2026 vintage puts the market at $2.7bn in 2025 and $3.6bn in 2026, reaching $9.5bn by 2031. The endpoint is unchanged and the horizon has moved by a year, so the two vintages are not interchangeable.

Owl & Co, in a report published with the app operator Holywater, puts paid vertical-drama revenue outside China at $3bn in 2025 and $4bn in 2026, growth of 33.3%. That sits close to Omdia's roughly $3bn ex-China share of its 2026 forecast. The market estimate in the report is Owl & Co's; Holywater is an operator, not a research vendor.

DataEye's full-year forecast for overseas microdrama is higher: more than $6bn for 2026, raised in its first-half release from $5bn. The vendor attributes the increase to batch exports of AI and comic-adapted dramas and to content partnerships with TikTok and YouTube. A Media Partners Asia estimate of about $1.5bn of combined annualised revenue for DramaBox and ReelShort in mid-2026 measures two apps, not the market.

Microdrama market estimates outside China

App-store spending and in-app purchase revenue

App-store series are the narrowest of the three revenue bases. Sensor Tower recorded $1.45bn of user spending in 2024, 16 times the previous year. For 2025 its figure appears in two forms: $2.8bn of app-store consumer spending outside China, up 116%, and $2.98bn, up 115%, which the vendor's own publication describes as global. A $2.03bn figure in circulation attaches an overseas-only level to Sensor Tower's global growth rate.

Two Chinese vendors put 2025 overseas in-app purchase revenue lower. DataEye gives $2.279bn across both app stores, up 129%; Diandian (点点数据) gives $2.058bn, up 126%. Deloitte's 2025 base of $3.8bn for in-app micro-series is a different basis again, and the series do not reconcile into one.

The 2026 half-year figures show slower growth in spending than in installs. DataEye puts first-half in-app purchase revenue outside China at about $1.27bn, up 13% year on year, against download growth of 79%. Its published split does not reconcile: Chinese-origin apps at $1.182bn, or 93%, and local apps at $70m, given as 7% but equal to 5.5% of the total.

App-store spending and in-app purchase revenue

China microdrama market size

Chinese figures cover the largest single market on Omdia's estimate, and two of the main sources do not state what they measure. The industry association CNSA put the 2024 market at RMB 50.44bn (about $6.9bn), up 34.9% and larger than the film box office (official). For 2025, the National Radio and Television Administration said at a State Council briefing on 17 September 2026 that the market exceeded RMB 100bn (official). iiMedia Research published RMB 67.79bn for 2025 on the same day, roughly a third below the regulator's figure, and forecasts RMB 150.59bn by 2030. Neither states its scope, so the gap cannot be attributed to a difference in measure.

Other whole-market figures come from the press and from companies. Dianzhong's chairman put China's 2026 market at RMB 150bn on 29 July 2026, a company statement. A narrower series covers one segment only: DataEye puts China's AI short-drama segment at RMB 40bn for 2026, up 138%, with RMB 22bn recorded in January to May, and it is not comparable with whole-market totals. The structure of the domestic industry is covered in the China duanju guide.

China microdrama market estimates

United States, Japan, India and other country estimates

Country figures come from different vendors on different measures. For the United States, Media Partners Asia sizes the market at $819m in 2024, rising to $3.8bn by 2030, figures the SAG-AFTRA Verticals Agreement also cites. Owl & Co puts the United States at $1.4bn in 2025. Sensor Tower measured the United States at 49% of global app-store in-app purchase spending, about $350m, in the first quarter of 2025.

Two unrelated $1.4bn figures circulate: Media Partners Asia's ex-China total for 2024 and Owl & Co's US figure for 2025. They differ in scope, year and vendor, and quoting them together implies a corroboration that does not exist.

Media Partners Asia forecasts more than $1.2bn for Japan by 2030 and ranks it the largest Asia-Pacific market outside China. Lumikai put Indian microdrama revenue above $300m in 2025 (estimate, via Business Today). Sensor Tower ranks Germany fifth among microdrama markets by revenue, and reported record in-app purchase revenue in South Korea in August 2026, up about 28% on July.

Country and regional microdrama estimates

Why microdrama market estimates differ

The spread between published figures traces to five recurring differences.

• Scope. Omdia places 83% of global revenue in China, so a China-inclusive total and an ex-China total for the same year are separated by most of the category.
• Measure. App-store consumer spend, gross in-app purchase value and company revenue are separate bases; the revenue leaderboard sets them out.
• Vintage. Media Partners Asia moved its $9.5bn ex-China endpoint from 2030 to 2031 between two editions, and DataEye raised its 2026 overseas forecast from $5bn to more than $6bn in its first-half 2026 release.
• Adjacent categories. A $150bn figure for vertical video outside China in 2026, from Holywater with Owl & Co, covers an advertising-inclusive category and is company-claimed; the same report's microdrama sub-figure is about $4bn. A separate figure of about $150bn attributed to the media advisor Hernan Lopez covers all vertical video, mostly advertising on Reels and TikTok. Neither is a microdrama market size.
• Units. The Chinese unit 亿 is 100m, and summaries that render it as "billion" inflate figures tenfold: Omdia's $14bn has circulated as $140bn, and QuestMobile's 851m Chinese short-drama users as 8.51 billion.

Some figures in circulation have no traceable vendor, including the $65bn figure for 2030.

Vendor independence varies too. Media Partners Asia's stated model inputs include regulatory filings, so agreement between its figures and a company filing is not independent corroboration. Sensor Tower acquired AppMagic on 12 May 2026, after buying data.ai in 2024, so figures from Sensor Tower and AppMagic are no longer independent of each other.