Falling marketing and platform costs, coupled with growing advertising revenues and an established appetite for franchises and sequels, are fuelling the microdrama boom, with market leader ReelShort’s revenues set to rise by a third this year, according to a report by Media Partners Asia (MPA).
Microdrama revenues outside China are set to grow from $2.7bn to $3.6bn this year, rising to $9.5bn by 2031, MPA estimates. Within this five-year projection, US revenues will more than double from $1.5bn to $3.7bn while Asia Pacific (excluding China) triples to $2.4bn, the report claims.
The market is dominated by five players, led by ReelShort with an estimated 29% share and a year-on-year revenue growth forecast of 34% year-on-year to $1.05m this year, rising to $1.7bn in 2028.
Founded in 2022 to take the locally popular ‘duanjus’ – as microdramas are known in China – to the international market, the company is owned by Crazy Maple Studio. Its titles include Saved By The Sexy Cowboy, Wings Of Fire: The Dragon Slayer Is My Ex-Lover and The Virgin’s Bucket List.
Next comes DramaBox (21%), which was selected as a Disney Accelerator company last year, followed by DramaWave (13%), NetShort (10%) and GoodShort (6%). The remaining 11% of the market is spread across some 300 smaller apps.
For ReelShort, Asia is the fastest-growing market, contributing 12% of total revenues and set to rise to 14% in 2027, fuelled by partnerships in Indonesia and the Philippines and local production and distribution deals in Japan and Korea, including a Showbox co-production.
With hit franchises and their sequels building demand, faster creative testing, and telco and strategic local market partnerships adding subscribers at low cost, marketing costs share of ReelShort revenues are falling, down from 55% of revenues in 2025 to 44% by 2027, releasing around $10.5m of EBITDSA for every percentage point.
Advertising, traditionally a small revenue stream in the nascent market, is forecast to command about 15% of ReelShort’s revenues by 2028. With no app-store commissions required, roughly 65-70 cents per advertising dollar flows through to earnings.
MPA CEO and executive director Vivek Couto said the ‘ReelShort / Crazy Maple Studio: Inside the US$1B Micro-Drama Machine’ report shows that “microdrama has begun to be an earnings story rather than a growth story”.
She said: “Marketing costs are coming down as hit franchises bring audiences in without paid support, platform fees are falling as operators move billing onto their own web stores, and advertising is entering the mix at high margin.”
Noting that Latin America and Asia Pacific account for around 60% of ReelShort’s estimated 70 million global monthly users in 2026 but only 19% of revenue, while North America contributes $620 million, or 59%, Couto added: “ReelShort is showing that the model can scale and make money at the same time. What decides the next phase is distribution and unit economics, not necessarily content volume.”
No comments yet