As the global microdrama industry competes for $26 billion in revenue by 2030, a diverse array of operators, platforms, content suppliers, and infrastructure providers are emerging to take advantage of the explosive growth in vertical storytelling. This is an essential guide to the key players shaping the future of the industry.
Chinese powerhouse
ByteDance (Red Fruit), Tencent (WeChat Video Accounts), and Kuaishou (Xi Fan) dominate China’s microdrama ecosystem, which will generate $7 billion in 2024 and is expected to exceed $9.4 billion this year. Each has built dedicated apps and distribution rails that are tightly integrated with social and payments ecosystems, separate from premium long-form video products. Their competitive advantage lies in controlling both content and infrastructure and managing customer acquisition costs while maintaining a direct relationship with their audience.
COL (China Online Literature) serves as the industry’s primary content engine. The company offers an extensive IP pipeline from its web novel library and powers content factories on major platforms. “We launched this platform in China in 2021 and it became a huge hit because of the IP we had,” explains Timothy Ou Jiawei, general manager of the company. “In fact, we had 20% market share in China from the beginning.” Other online giants China Literature and Tomato Novel also provide intellectual property that ByteDance, Tencent and Kuaishou convert into vertical drama series.
Founded in 2022 by author Mo Jian (Shao Ye), Liu Yi Media produces over 20 original short dramas every month and has a library of over 500 titles.
us market
DramaBox has emerged as a standard bearer of profitability in the US market. According to Media Partners Asia, the platform reported $323 million in revenue and $10 million in net profit in 2024, and grew rapidly in 2025. Its model blends subscriptions, per-episode unlocks, and advertising, and shows that a sustainable economy is achievable outside of China.
According to research firm Media Partners Asia, reel shorts will gain greater scale, reaching around $400 million in 2024, but remain in the red due to high marketing costs and content amortization. COL owns a 49% stake in Crazy Maple Studio, the studio behind ReelShort. This platform challenge exemplifies a central tension in the industry. Customer acquisition costs often consume revenue before unit economics become positive.
Launched in April 2025, COL’s FlareFlow quickly climbed the entertainment app charts in multiple markets. Third-party tracking shows top 5 placements in several countries.
ShortMax is actively involved in store listing and marketing efforts.
Korean innovators
Vigloo (SpoonLabs) applies South Korea’s proven entertainment export model to microdramas. Founded by Neil Choi and backed by $86 million from gaming giant Krafton, Vigloo’s content managers come from Disney and CJ ENM. The platform partners with local creators to create original IP for the US, South Korea and Japan markets, offers more than 300 premium dramas, and plans to release more than 100 US original series by the end of 2025. “Our strategy is to take our proven storytelling DNA and adapt it to vertical viewing formats by partnering with local teams to tailor content to local audiences,” Choi explains. Currently, nearly half of Vigloo’s revenue comes from the US market.
Watcha launched Shortcha in 2024 as a dedicated microdrama service featuring content from South Korea, China, Japan, and the United States, while Tving introduced a vertical short video section in the same year, initially focusing on highlights from its library before planning to launch original microdramas. Topreels represents another Korean platform entering the space, but the market remains fragmented as multiple players test different approaches to vertical storytelling.
Marketing and strategy layer
QianFan represents a critical infrastructure layer that determines whether the economics of the microdrama will work or fail. The traffic marketing agency rolls over $50 million annually across Meta, Instagram, TikTok, and other global ad networks, managing campaigns with ROI ranging from 0.7 to 1.6 depending on title. QianFan deploys hundreds of creative assets per title across a variety of channels and formats, demonstrating the data-intensive, performance-driven approach needed to build profitable audiences. “Thoroughly examining daily data and responses and immediately acting on data is critical to winning,” the company said.
AR Asia brings operational expertise and strategic perspective to the evolving industry. Chief operating officer and co-founder Ronan Wong frames Microdrama within the broader context of casual gaming, suggesting a similar pattern of rapid expansion followed by consolidation could emerge. The company also acts as a key facilitator connecting platforms, production companies and distribution channels across the global microdrama ecosystem.
content creator
Lunar Ticks is the Los Angeles-based writing team of Justin Saucedo and Vivian “Anan” Wang, bridging the Chinese and American production ecosystems. This married duo draws on their bicultural expertise. Saucedo worked in China during the co-production boom of the 2010s, while Wang was immersed in China’s film and television industry. From traditional screenwriters, they have become vertical storytelling specialists, working on both original IP and platform commissions. “Writing vertically is a crash course in identifying and removing unnecessary stuff,” they observe.
Production companies are also entering the microdrama field across Asia. Bamboo is one of a new generation of Korean studios specializing in microdramas, providing content to platforms such as Vigloo and Watcha. In Kazakhstan, Salem Social Media has built a large vertical video operation, with the format showing signs of expanding into Central Asia.
Holywater recently attracted investment from Fox Entertainment, demonstrating the growing interest of traditional media in the vertical. Co-founders and co-CEOs Bogdan Nesvit and Anatoly Kasyanov represent a new operator looking to bring Hollywood production values and IP development expertise to the microdrama format. “Our goal is basically to develop leaders in niche areas,” Nesbitt explains. “We see this as a huge opportunity to usher in a new era of video streaming for mobile phones.” The partnership with Fox will give Holywater access to studio IP and talent, while Fox will gain user data and distribution into vertical formats. “We’re building a network that discovers great IP at scale, reuses that IP in a variety of ways, and efficiently distributes that IP to audiences where they actually are,” Nesvit says.
emerging players
Founded by Adrian Cheng, the entrepreneur behind K11’s “cultural commerce” model and the new conglomerate Almad Group, Crisp positions itself as a bridge between Asian and global markets. Mr. Chen’s convening of the Seoul conference “The Future is Vertical” demonstrates his ambition to play a central role in shaping the next phase of the industry. Asahi Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd.
Traditional broadcasters are also beginning to explore this format. Japan’s Asahi Television Broadcasting Corporation represents the potential for established media companies to vertically adapt by leveraging their content libraries and production infrastructure as formats mature. “In Japan, short viewing periods on smartphones have become a daily habit, creating an environment in which short dramas and microdramas naturally function as a gateway to broadcasting and streaming, and as an amplifier to expand existing IP,” explains Shin Iida, general manager of Asahi Television Broadcasting’s programming department. Broadcasters see microdramas as part of a circular model where short-form content can be tested, scaled up and integrated with traditional TV and streaming.
In the emerging market of India, Kuku TV secured VC funding and grew to approximately 35 million monthly active users and approximately 5 million paid subscribers. “India has a huge opportunity because it has a huge mobile base, the second largest in the world after China,” said Vivek Kout of Media Partners Asia. However, the business model is still being tested, and advertising is expected to play a more important monetization role than subscriptions in the short term.
It also shapes the landscape.
Beyond the dominant carriers, a new wave of broadcasters, regional platforms, and technology providers are expanding the vertical video ecosystem. In China, traditional streamers iQIYI and Bilibili have each launched dedicated short drama divisions and are testing serialized mini-dramas within their apps to retain younger viewers. In South Korea, CJ ENM’s tvN D Studio and SBS Mobidrama are repurposing broadcast-style storytelling for mobile. Japan’s TV Tokyo Digital Studio is experimenting with vertical spinoffs for dramas and anime, and Line Next has begun integrating short-form videos with its social and payments ecosystem.
In Southeast Asia, True ID has emerged as the largest platform in Thailand, pivoting from long-form to short-form content with TrueID Originals building a localized vertical content slate. Vidio, Indonesia’s largest platform, is developing Vidio Shorts as part of its vertical strategy. Hong Kong’s Viu Shorts is piloting similar initiatives across Asia. On the analytics and infrastructure side, companies such as Media Partners Asia, Data.ai and Sensor Tower are providing market intelligence, while AI dubbing specialists Deepdub and Dubverse are enabling faster and lower-cost localization for international distribution.
platform courtship
Beyond specialized microdrama operators, the future of the industry is likely to be shaped by the strategic interests of major technology platforms. TikTok for Business and Google were keynote speakers at Crisp’s The Future Is Vertical conference in Seoul, hinting at expanded platform collaboration with microdrama producers and the potential for scale of distribution to bypass standalone apps altogether.
In this rapidly consolidating landscape, the winners will be those that manage distribution and monetization infrastructure, effectively manage customer acquisition costs, and build sustainable IP pipelines. This exact combination remains elusive for most companies outside China’s integrated ecosystem.
