Hongguo Free Short Drama had 430 million monthly active users in September, surpassing Doubao

On November 3, QuestMobile released the "China Mobile Internet Autumn Report." As of September 2026, the scale of monthly active users in China's mobile internet reached 1.281 billion, a slight increase of 0.9% year-on-year; the average usage time per user in September was 189.8 hours, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%. Short drama videos and short videos have become the core sources of growth in usage time, contributing a growth rate of 111.5% as of September 2026. In that month, the total net increase in usage time for short drama video and short video apps was 13.329 billion hours and 5.717 billion hours, ranking first and second in the duration growth track, while the net increase for AIGC was 978 million hours, with the total usage time for online videos declining by 1.38 billion hours during the same period.

In terms of user numbers, the top three applications within the Douyin Group in September 2026 were Douyin, Hongguo Free Short Drama, and Doubao, with deduplicated total user counts of 1.029 billion, 430 million, and 419 million respectively, with Hongguo surpassing Doubao. The top three applications in the same period last year were Douyin, Jinri Toutiao, and Douyin Lite. The user scale of the short drama video industry increased from 10 million to 400 million in less than three years, with a compound annual growth rate of 443.1%. Douyin, Kuaishou, and their lite versions occupy the top four positions in the short video industry and continue to show growth.

Specifically, in September 2026, Hongguo Short Drama had 430 million monthly active users, while Hongguo Comic Drama had 7.883 million, with a year-on-year growth rate of 268.7 times. The newly launched Green Bubble Short Drama at the end of September reached 156 million monthly active users. The Hippo Theater app had 30.8 million active users in September, a year-on-year decline of 40.3%; the user volume of the top ten short drama mini-programs has exceeded that of the Hippo Theater app, with Lianqu Short Drama and Ceylon Theater having 75.17 million and 45.67 million respectively. According to iiMedia Consulting, the market size of China's micro short drama is projected to be 50.44 billion yuan in 2024, reaching 67.79 billion yuan in 2025, and expected to be 79.33 billion yuan in 2026.