Huawei tests app for short drama content, joining China’s booming miniseries industry
- Like similar streaming platforms, the app allows users to watch and subscribe to the content, typically a few minutes long each
- Revenue for the online short-drama market in China soared 268 per cent to US$5.2 billion in 2023, according to iiMedia Research
Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies is joining the booming short drama industry by testing a new online miniseries app.
The Duanjudaquan app, which translates as “short drama collections” in English, is now available for certain users for a five-day trial until Sunday, which can be downloaded within its Member Centre app on a Huawei phone, according to a screenshot shared by blogger DataEye, which focuses on the industry’s development.
The product, like similar streaming platforms, allows users to watch and subscribe to the content, typically a few minutes long for each episode.
Huawei did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Huawei’s new platform “is essentially a content distributor, whose advantage is its strong distribution capabilities relying on [the large user base] of its phones and app store”, said Na Yimu, chief capital officer of Hong Kong-listed Flowing Cloud Technology, a major developer of virtual reality and augmented reality content, which also makes short dramas.
Production of such dramas “is already a red ocean market”, Na added, referring to an industry that is getting crowded.
Huawei’s new app marks the company’s second move into video content after it launched the Huawei Video app streaming platform in 2016. That platform now offers more than 10,000 films and animations totalling more than 1.5 million minutes running time, according to its website.
In 2022, Wu Hao, head of Huawei’s interactive media department, said that the video app had more than 240 million monthly active users.
The development comes as revenue for the online short-drama market in China soared 268 per cent to 37.4 billion yuan (US$5.2 billion) in 2023, according to consultancy iiMedia Research, which projects the industry will be worth more than 100 billion yuan by 2027.
China’s short video platforms were the first to embrace the new genre, thanks to a surge in the consumption of short-form video content. Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok also owned by ByteDance, and Kuaishou Technology, have both launched stand-alone miniseries platforms.
Sites such as Tencent Video under Tencent Holdings and Baidu-backed iQiyi have set aside dedicated channels for mini-dramas alongside other categories.
Under a range of measures, the NRTA will establish a content-screening system for short web dramas and extend its supervision to the distribution networks for these shows, including dedicated apps and short video platforms.
