ByteDance's short-drama app is turning into China's latest obsession

ByteDance's short-drama app Hongguo is taking over China.

LIU JUNFENG/ Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images ByteDance's short-drama app, Hongguo, is riding high in China.

It now trails only Douyin, WeChat, and Douyin Lite in terms of how much time Chinese users spend on it.

Meanwhile, major long-form streaming platforms in the country are losing ground.

Forget three-hour movies.

China is getting hooked on bite-sized dramas — and ByteDance's Hongguo app is becoming one of the country's biggest platforms for streaming them.

In August, ByteDance's apps accounted for 41.8% of the time users spent on China's 50 biggest mobile apps, up from 34.2% a year earlier.

The figures come from Nomura's China Internet and New Media Monthly App Tracker, published October 5.

Much of that growth came from its two apps: Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and Hongguo, a streaming platform focused on short dramas.

Hongguo ranks fourth among the country's biggest apps, behind ByteDance's Douyin and its Lite version, as well as WeChat.

At the same time, China's long-form streaming services are losing ground.

In August, the monthly time Chinese users spent on iQIYI, Tencent Video, and Mango TV fell by 35%, 40%, and 27%, respectively, year-on-year.

Short dramas on the rise Launched in 2023, Hongguo is essentially TikTok for short dramas, operating on a free, ad-supported model.

Chinese data firm QuestMobile said the platform had nearly 370 million users as of June.