Hamedia: The Chinese Short Drama Trend Sweeps the World: From Fragmented Entertainment to a New Engine for Cultural Export

Kazakhstan International News Agency, the phenomenon of "short dramas" on Chinese short video platforms is rising at an astonishing speed, not only dominating the domestic market but also rapidly penetrating overseas, showing a clear trend of globalization.

These vertical screen mini-episodes, which last 1-10 minutes, have won over hundreds of millions of users with their tight plots and "feel-good" storytelling. In 2024, the market size has exceeded 50 billion yuan, and it is expected to surpass 100 billion yuan by 2027. KAZA has compiled the core data and impacts of this trend.

Short dramas originated around 2018 on platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, initially mostly user-generated content, and have now evolved into a professional industry.

The Xinhua News Agency reported that the "China Micro-Short Drama Industry Development White Paper (2024)" released by the China Internet Network Audio-Visual Association in 2024 showed that the market size of short dramas reached 50.44 billion yuan, an increase of 34.90% year-on-year, exceeding the box office revenue of mainland movies of 47 billion yuan for the first time. Data shows that in September 2024 alone, the monthly active users of the Chinese video application platform "Hongguo Short Drama" exceeded 158 million. At the same time, due to the diverse payment models, pay-per-episode and in-app advertising (IAA) dominate monetization, and the scale of capital flow reached about 11.6 billion yuan in the first half of 2024.

Analysts point out that the core of this phenomenon lies in its adaptation to fragmented entertainment needs. The report states that 39.9% of netizens often watch short dramas, and 31.9% have paid for consumption. The themes focus on "boss" and "revenge" type stories that bring satisfaction, combined with AI translation and localization, making them easy to cross-culturally spread.

Data from the National Radio and Television Administration of China shows that 470 micro-short dramas were issued with licenses in the first three quarters of 2024, an increase of 35.4% compared to the previous year.

The global popularity of short dramas is particularly notable. Between 2023 and 2024, more than 40 Chinese short drama apps had cumulative downloads of nearly 55 million times overseas, generating 170 million USD in revenue. In the first half of 2024, the total turnover of overseas short dramas exceeded 2.3 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 4 billion yuan for the whole year. The United States contributed over 60% of the revenue, Japan and South Korea accounted for nearly 20%, and Southeast Asia accounted for 24.96% of the downloads. The app ReelShort had a view count of 17.2 billion times on TikTok's "#shortmovie" topic. According to the report, in the first quarter of 2024, global short drama app consumption reached 146 million USD, an increase of 8,000% year-on-year.

The success of going global was due to localization strategies, such as ReelShort earning over 6 million USD per month in the US. Melolo, launched by ByteDance, had over 100,000 downloads in Indonesia. In 2024, more than 100 Chinese short drama apps went global, with cumulative downloads of 148 million times and in-app purchase revenue of 252 million USD. The global market (excluding China) reached 2 billion USD.

Chinese short dramas are not only an entertainment export but also promote cultural exchange. The report predicts that the number of monthly active users of Chinese short drama applications abroad will reach 200-300 million in the future. However, content that is vulgar and regulatory challenges need to be vigilant, and the National Radio and Television Administration of China has prepared a filing system targeting these issues.

This trend marks the transformation of Chinese digital content from a "traffic password" to global cultural products, which is worth learning from by Central Asian countries to promote regional digital economy cooperation.

Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1843689329401929/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author.