QuestMobile counts 400m short-drama video users in China
QuestMobile's autumn 2026 report says short-drama video users in China grew from 10m to 400m in under three years, and that short-drama and short video accounted for 111.5% of mobile time growth in September.
What this basis means: Third-party research vendor estimate. The vendor is named wherever the source identifies it.
Short-drama video users in China grew from 10m to 400m in under three years, a compound annual growth rate of 443.1%, according to QuestMobile's 2026 China Mobile Internet Autumn Report, published on 3 November 2026.
The research firm said short-drama video and short video, the two leading categories, contributed 111.5% of the growth in total mobile usage time in September 2026, while time spent in other categories such as online video and general news declined. Total mobile internet monthly active users stood at 1.281bn, up 0.9% year on year.
According to QuestMobile figures reported by ifeng, ByteDance's free short-drama app Hongguo (红果) reached 430m deduplicated total users in September 2026, ahead of the group's AI assistant Doubao at 419m and second within the group only to Douyin at 1.029bn. Deduplicated total users combine an app's users across its access points and are not a monthly active user count.
Companies Hongguo, ByteDance
Sources
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