ByteDance’s Hongguo Short-Drama App Is Becoming a Major Force in China’s Mobile Video Market

ByteDance’s apps accounted for 41.8% of time spent on China’s 50 biggest mobile apps in August, up from 34.2% a year earlier, according to Nomura’s China Internet and New Media Monthly App Tracker cited by Business Insider. The growth is tied largely to Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and Hongguo, ByteDance’s short-drama streaming platform. Hongguo ranks fourth among China’s biggest apps, behind Douyin, Douyin Lite, and WeChat.

Launched in 2023, Hongguo uses a free, ad-supported model and focuses on short dramas built for mobile viewing. QuestMobile said the platform had nearly 370 million users as of June. The format favors episodes lasting several minutes, with storylines including romance, revenge, fantasy, and family conflicts.

As Hongguo and Douyin gain momentum, China’s long-form streaming platforms are seeing time spent decline. In August, monthly time spent on iQIYI, Tencent Video, and Mango TV fell 35%, 40%, and 27%, respectively, year-on-year. The shift signals a broader competition for attention between mobile-native, bite-sized storytelling and traditional streaming formats.

Omdia expects the US, the largest short-drama market outside China, to generate roughly half of the $3 billion in international short-drama revenue forecast for this year. Omdia also puts global short-drama revenue at about $11 billion in 2025 and expects it to reach $14 billion by the end of this year. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said AI video tools can help brands create ads at a fraction of the usual cost and said he believed the “overwhelming majority” of short dramas now being produced use AI models, including ByteDance’s Seedance.