China can produce an estimated 40,000 ultrashorts a year. Now, fierce competition at home is pressuring companies to look abroad.
On March 27, TikTok operator ByteDance launched PikoShow, a pay-per-episode ultrashort drama app, in Japan. Within days, the ultrashort drama “The Glass Marriage Contract” accumulated over 8 million views on the platform.
PikoShow arrived shortly after the success of ByteDance’s Melolo, an ad-supported ultrashort app targeting the Southeast Asian market that released in November 2024. In its first quarter of operation, Melolo was downloaded more than 3.17 million times — still significantly behind regional leader RapidTV but nevertheless a strong indication of ByteDance’s ability to compete in the market.
According to data from the ByteDance-owned marketing platform Ocean Engine, Chinese ultrashort drama production capacity has grown to 40,000 series a year. There are signs the domestic market may be hitting its limits, however. Since January 2025, the completion rate of ultrashort dramas in the Chinese market has dropped by 18% year on year, while daily viewing time growth has plummeted from 99% in 2024 to just 11.3%. Market oversaturation has triggered a round of ferocious competition, forcing ultrashort drama practitioners to make tough choices: either elevate quality and try to crack the premium tier or pivot to new opportunities — and less crowded seas — abroad.
The Chinese firm Crazy Maple Studio officially launched ReelShort, an ultrashort drama app targeting overseas audiences, in August 2022. The platform initially focused on translating Chinese ultrashorts, but the results were underwhelming and in 2023, ReelShort shifted gears and began experimenting with localized productions.
Today, the platform outsources much of its production to U.S.-based teams. But while the actors are predominantly American, other key roles — such as producers and screenwriters — are still typically filled by Chinese. Many scripts are adapted from Chinese web novels or ultrashorts, albeit with significant localization. For instance, poison plots in Chinese dramas are often replaced by food allergy scenarios that appeal more to overseas audiences. Costs are higher, too: The production cost of an overseas-made ultrashort drama ranges between $100,000 and $300,000, or roughly three times higher than their Chinese counterparts.
Nevertheless, the move has paid off. In June 2023, ReelShort released “The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband,” its first true overseas hit. The series, which follows a woman who is forced to marry a disgraced billionaire’s illegitimate son to save her ailing mother, only to discover he is secretly wealthy, accumulated over 300 million views and propelled ReelShort to the top of the App Store’s entertainment charts by the end of 2023. According to SensorTower, ReelShort was downloaded 28.23 million times and earned $56.71 million in revenue that year.
Left: A promotional image for “The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband”; right: The interface of ReelShort. From Google Play
In 2024, the top three overseas ultrashort drama apps by in-app purchase revenue were DramaBox ($140 million), ReelShort ($130 million), and ShortMax ($82.87 million). All three are backed by Chinese capital, and together they produced around 1,000 overseas ultrashorts.
That may sound like a lot, but it’s a drop in the bucket relative to domestic production, and investors are optimistic that the market has plenty of room to grow. A 2024 white paper published by TikTok projected the global ultrashort drama audience to grow from nearly 40 million monthly users in 2024 and estimated it would reach between 200 and 300 million monthly users in the “foreseeable future.”
However, Chinese companies still face significant challenges in tailoring their offerings to local conditions, including cultural differences, rising costs, and shifting advertising paradigms.
Localization is perhaps the most critical component. Audience preferences and regulatory requirements vary widely across markets. Male-centric tropes like the “subservient sons-in-law” popular in China fail to resonate with American men, while Japanese viewers are highly sensitive to regional dialects, with subtle differences between voice actors’ Kanto and Kansai accents capable of derailing a show’s appeal. And in religiously conservative regions, content that runs counter to local beliefs may provoke a backlash.
Rising labor costs are also inflating production expenses. The pay rates for popular ultrashort stars have soared from $500 to $1,200 per day. Labor protections in countries like France and Germany also present challenges for Chinese production teams accustomed to more intensive schedules. To reduce costs and shorten production timelines, some overseas ultrashort drama teams collaborate with domestic companies, adopting a staggered work model. For instance, a Japanese post-production team hands off projects to a Chinese team after hours, which returns the completed work the next morning. This approach reduces single-episode production costs to one-third of what Japanese teams typically spend.
Meanwhile, there are two primary customer acquisition models used by overseas ultrashort drama platforms. The first mirrors China’s traditional reliance on advertising. However, overseas ultrashort dramas face higher thresholds, stricter standards, and greater expectations for returns. For example, platforms like Google Play and iOS charge a 30-35% fee on in-app purchases. This means overseas ultrashorts must achieve a Day 1 ROI of 0.8 to break even and reach 1.6 within 30-45 days to fully recover costs. To address this, many platforms are cutting costs and looking for alternative strategies. Alternative customer acquisition methods are increasingly popular, with platforms creating official accounts on YouTube, TikTok, X, and Facebook with free previews and links to their apps.
Tariffs are another source of uncertainty. While ultrashorts don’t involve the cross-border transfer of physical goods, production hardware like servers, cameras, and storage devices may fall under the new tariffs on electronics. Additionally, if trade tensions escalate, U.S. firms could pass on costs — such as digital service taxes — to overseas ultrashort drama developers. And it remains to be seen whether U.S. President Donald Trump will follow through on his threat to tariff films — and whether that will filter down to the ultrashort industry.
Chinese capital currently holds a dominant position in the overseas ultrashort drama market, while local players remain cautious and adopt a wait-and-see approach. But that, too, may be starting to change. South Korea’s JTBC plans to launch its ultrashort drama brand JoyTBC, aiming to produce over 12 original series within the next year. Still, in the long run, the entry of local players is not a threat but an opportunity for industry evolution. As creatives from around the world converge, perhaps the ultrashort drama industry can move beyond outsourcing and become a truly global industry.
Lo La is the pen name of an insider in the ultrashort film industry.
Editor: Wu Haiyun.
(Header image: From left to right, promotional images for Melolo, ReelShort, and PikoShow. Visuals from Google Play and VCG, reedited by Sixth Tone)
