Microdrama statistics 2026: sourced, dated figures

Microdrama market size and spending statistics

Market-size figures come in three revenue bases (app-store consumer spend, gross in-app purchase and company revenue) and two scopes (China-inclusive and ex-China). The figures below are listed with their basis and are not comparable across rows. The full comparison is in the microdrama market size guide.

Sensor Tower put 2025 growth in app-store spending outside China at 116%, and at 115% on the $2.98bn figure its own publication describes as global. DataEye put first-half 2026 growth in overseas in-app purchase revenue at 13%. Survey figures are a separate category: a Snap-commissioned Ipsos survey of 3,000 daily social media users in the United States, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia reported that Snapchat users spend more than $50 a month on average on short-drama platforms. Those figures are survey responses rather than measured spending, from a company that sells advertising to short-drama apps.

Market size and spending

Downloads and user statistics

Download series from different vendors are not directly comparable without knowing which apps each counts. Sensor Tower counted 475m category downloads in 2024 and 2.3bn in 2025. Adjust and Sensor Tower reported short-drama downloads up 186% year on year in the fourth quarter of 2025, while OTT downloads fell 7%.

Two vendors' first-half 2026 totals are close, but their growth rates differ. DataEye counts 1.441bn overseas downloads, up 79%; Mintegral, using Insightrackr data, counts 1.45bn, up 95.5%, with about 83% from emerging markets.

For users, DataEye puts overseas monthly active users at 258m at mid-2026 and projects 389m by the end of the year. Omdia's 2025 estimates put the United States at 66m monthly active users, Brazil at 24m and Mexico at 20m. In China, QuestMobile counts 851m de-duplicated short-drama users as of May 2026.

Downloads and users

Top short drama app statistics

Revenue and download rankings do not always name the same leader. On revenue, ReelShort recorded RMB 5.72bn (about $805m) of gross revenue for 2025, up 97%, in filings of COL Group, which holds 49.24% of operator Crazy Maple Studio (official), while a third-party estimate puts DramaBox at about $530m for 2025. In the first quarter of 2026, Naavik's reading of Sensor Tower data put DramaBox first by Android in-app purchase revenue outside China at $95m, ahead of ReelShort at $92m and NetShort at $52m.

On downloads, DataEye put Kunlun's FreeReels first in the first half of 2026 with more than 218m, the only app above 200m. Sensor Tower attributed 76% of all category downloads in 2024 to DramaBox, ShortMax and ReelShort. Chinese-origin apps took 93% of overseas in-app purchase revenue in the first half of 2026, down from about 95% in 2025, on DataEye's figures. Rankings by measure, period and vendor are compared in the short drama app rankings.

Top apps

Engagement and audience statistics

Time-spent figures put some microdrama apps ahead of Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ on daily minutes per user. Adjust and Sensor Tower measured ReelShort users in the United States at 35.7 minutes a day in 2025, against 24.8 for Netflix, 26.9 for Prime Video and 23 for Disney+. The same 35.7-minute figure is also credited to Omdia for the fourth quarter of 2025.

Dentsu's Entertainment Spotlight 2026, a survey of 8,400 consumers in 12 markets it does not list, found one in five consumers watching microdramas and 62% of viewers reporting sessions longer than an hour. Omdia's April 2026 consumer research put men at 54% of UK microdrama users, against an even split in the United States and 71% women in Brazil.

On views, YouTube said microdramas passed 6.5bn views in the first half of 2026. Owl & Co counted 63bn microdrama views in the third quarter of 2026 on the apps it tracks, more than half of them on TikTok's PineDrama. Audience profiles are covered in who watches microdramas.

Engagement and audience

Microdrama funding and listed company statistics

The largest disclosed rounds sit in adjacent AI video rather than at microdrama platforms. Holywater raised a $22m Series A for My Drama on 15 January 2026, led by Horizon Capital, and Kuku TV an $85m Series C in October 2025 at more than $550m post-money. Shortical's $100m from PvX Partners on 1 July 2026 is a user-acquisition credit facility, not equity, and implies no valuation. Kuaishou's HKEX filing put a strategic equity round in Kling AI, its AI-video model, at about $3.0bn for 16.67%.

Filings from listed operators carry the category's official figures. FlexTV owner Mega Matrix reported FY2025 revenue of about $26.1m, down 28%, and a net loss of about $34.3m. COL Group's short drama and IP derivatives revenue reached RMB 411.3m in the first half of 2026, up 108.72%. Disclosed rounds are listed in the microdrama funding tracker.

Funding and listed companies

China microdrama statistics

China is the largest microdrama market on Omdia's estimate, and its statistics come from the regulator and from domestic vendors. At a State Council briefing on 17 September 2026, the NRTA put the national audience at more than 800m users and said 430,000 microdramas went online in the first eight months of 2026, 13 times the total for all of 2025, with AI-generated dramas accounting for more than 90% (official). The figure counts titles brought online rather than commercially released productions.

QuestMobile counts 851m de-duplicated short-drama users across all channels as of May 2026, with standalone apps at 402m, up 77.1%, and WeChat mini-programs at 508m, up 25.4%. ByteDance's free, ad-supported Hongguo reached 356m monthly active users in May 2026. On supply, DataEye counted 221,900 AI and manga dramas launched in the first half of 2026, of which 1,055, or 0.47%, passed 100m views. The industry is profiled in the China duanju guide.

China

Europe, United States and India statistics

Omdia names the United States as the largest single market outside China. Sensor Tower put it at 49% of global app-store in-app purchase spending, about $350m, in the first quarter of 2025, and Media Partners Asia sizes US revenue at $819m in 2024, rising to $3.8bn by 2030.

Europe's published figures are smaller. Omdia's 2025 estimates put the United Kingdom at 8.2m monthly active users and Germany at 4.4m. Sensor Tower ranks Germany fifth by revenue and as the fastest-growing download market, at +210% year on year. Europe accounted for about 10% of global in-app purchase revenue in the first quarter of 2025 and about 4% of viewing time in the fourth quarter of 2025. Adjust and Sensor Tower put European revenue per monthly active user at $2.05 for 2025 and $0.24 for the first quarter of 2026, a full year against a single quarter. Country detail is in the Europe guide.

In India, Lumikai estimates more than $300m of microdrama revenue in 2025, about 100m monthly active users and about 17m paying users, with average revenue per paying user of about $15 against about $35 for OTT. India accounts for 11% of global downloads at revenue per download of about $0.031, per Sensor Tower and Real Reel. Indian operators are covered in the India guide.

Europe, United States and India