🌅 The Rise of Micro-Dramas

SOURCE

Appfigures

WHAT TO KNOW

• Micro-drama apps are dominating entertainment charts on both the Apple and Google app stores, with three of the most popular apps, ReelShort, DramaBox, and DramaWave, notching 34 million downloads and $78 million in revenue in February alone. On these apps, viewers get 60- to 90-second vertically shot and professionally produced soap operas—with titles like Fake Married to My Billionaire CEO and Return of the Abandoned Heiress—that are designed to be highly addictive and often end with a cliffhanger. To hook viewers, the apps make the first few episodes free before charging anywhere from $10 to $20 a week to continue viewing (series typically have dozens of episodes), far more than even the most popular streaming services, like Netflix or Disney+.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Micro dramas are big business in China, where the industry grew tenfold from 2021 to 2023 and is now estimated to be worth $5.3 billion (it’s expected to reach $14 billion by 2027). Predictions of that big business moving West appear to be proven true (ReelShort, the most popular micro-drama app, says half of its 45 million monthly active users are in the U.S.), though industry experts say time will tell whether micro-dramas are actually the next evolution of streaming content or simply the latest trend in our ever-evolving entertainment ecosystem.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• The rise of micro-drama apps recalls the downfall of Quibi, the short-lived, short-form content app that launched and closed in 2020 after raising $1.75 billion and selling $100 million in upfront ad inventory. Mocking Quibi has been fashionable in tech, entertainment, and financial circles ever since leadership announced its closing in October 2020; however, the present success of micro-dramas raises an important question: was Quibi actually bad or simply too early?