Three sources, three scopes: what Omdia, Media Partners Asia and iiMedia measure, and why their numbers differ
Search “vertical drama market size” and you get several numbers for the same year. Most of the gap comes from two things: what the figure covers, and who produced it.
| Source | Figure | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Omdia (23 Feb 2026) | $11B (2025), $14B (2026); >$22B by end-2030 | World, China included |
| Media Partners Asia (MPA) | $8.4B (2024) | World: China $7.0B + $1.4B outside China |
| Media Partners Asia (MPA) | $2.7B (2025), $3.6B (2026), $9.5B (2031) | Outside China only |
| iiMedia (22 Jun 2025) | CNY 50.44B ≈ $7.0B (2024); CNY 67.79B ≈ $9.4B (2025, forecast) | China only |
A China-only figure and a world figure are not competing estimates of the same thing. Adding sources together does not work either: iiMedia’s China forecast for 2025 (≈ $9.4B) plus MPA’s count outside China ($2.7B) gives $12.1B, above the $11B Omdia gives for the whole world. The two sources do not draw the same boundary around the market, so their numbers do not stack.
The China Netcasting Services Association (CNSA) is often quoted for the size of the Chinese market; it publishes none. The Chinese totals in circulation come from iiMedia. Streaming Lens adds no house total on top: each series is shown with its source and its scope.
What a market figure should count: direct platform revenue — in-app purchases (coins/tokens), subscriptions and advertising on vertical drama apps. When a published figure mixes in other flows, we say so.
What it should not count:
Which series we use: Omdia for the world, iiMedia for China alone, Media Partners Asia for the market outside China. For company revenue: the accounts filed by COL Group for ReelShort’s publisher Crazy Maple Studio, and the figures DramaBox declared to MPA. Streaming Lens does not build a house total. For the platforms behind these figures, see our app-by-app comparison of 12 micro-drama apps.
| Year | World | China | Outside China | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | $8.4B | $7.0B | $1.4B | MPA |
| 2024 | — | CNY 50.44B (≈ $7.0B) | — | iiMedia |
| 2025 | $11B | — | — | Omdia |
| 2025 | — | CNY 67.79B (≈ $9.4B), forecast | — | iiMedia |
| 2025 | — | — | $2.7B | MPA |
| 2026 | $14B | — | — | Omdia |
| 2026 | — | — | $3.6B | MPA |
| 2030 | >$22B (end of year) | — | — | Omdia |
| 2031 | — | — | $9.5B | MPA |
One row per source and year; a dash means the source publishes no figure for that cell. Rows do not add up across sources. Omdia: 23 February 2026; the end-2030 figure is reported via DEG; about 15% a year over 2025–2030. iiMedia: 22 June 2025; the 2025 figure is a forecast. MPA: Media Partners Asia. Yuan figures converted at the annual average rate (Federal Reserve G.5A: 7.1957 CNY/USD in 2024, 7.1875 in 2025; Q1 2026: 6.93, OECD).
China (largest market, maturing): CNY 50.44B in 2024, CNY 67.79B forecast for 2025 (iiMedia). NRTA regulation caps volume. Market is platform-consolidated. Revenue growth comes from ARPPU increase, not user acquisition.
US: Explosive growth but concentrated — ReelShort alone is >50% of US revenue. Market viability depends on whether DramaBox and 2–3 others achieve profitability. If ReelShort stumbles, the US market shrinks 50%.
India: Fastest absolute growth. 1.4B smartphones. But the ad-supported model means ARPPU is 10–20x lower than US. Volume must compensate for low monetization.
The trap: Extrapolating China’s S-curve globally ignores that Rest of World hasn’t found product-market fit yet outside of ReelShort. Most international apps are burning cash on user acquisition without clear paths to profitability. The market is real, but the path from $14B (2026, Omdia) to more than $22B by end-2030 (Omdia) requires structural wins, not just growth.
Omdia puts the market above $22B by end-2030, about 15% a year from 2025. Whether that path holds depends on four structural factors:
Streaming Lens publishes no house scenario for 2030: the reference is Omdia’s, and these four factors are what to watch.
India: $300M (2025), projected $3.1-$3.4B by FY2030 (Lumikai Fund). 120M episodes watched daily. 15-20M daily users in Tier II/III cities. JioHotstar is launching free AVOD micro-dramas during IPL April 2026, backed by a $445M (INR 4,000 crore) five-year commitment to South Indian content, per JioStar's own disclosure. Key players include Story TV (80M users), Kuku TV (170M+ downloads), and VIGLOO (doubling production to 400+ originals in 2026). The Indian market is ad-supported by default -- coin-based monetization has not proven viable at Indian ARPU levels.
Africa: Mansa launched in February 2026 with $12M seed funding, targeting Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa. Vskit reported 51M users across the continent in November 2021 — a company figure, never audited, with no more recent measurement published. Sub-Saharan Africa processes $1.4T in mobile money volume annually per GSMA -- a natural payment rail for micro-transactions. Nollywood's existing production infrastructure (fast, cheap, high-volume) maps directly to vertical drama economics.
The market figures above ($14B in 2026, Omdia) measure what platforms collect. The vertical drama economy is larger when including: production equipment and studio rentals, AI post-production tools (MindStudio), advertising and UA spend (5-9x production budgets), the talent ecosystem ($1,000/day lead actors in the US), and IP licensing to social platforms (TikTok Minis, Instagram Reels). No published series measures that wider economy.
This distinction matters for investors. The market figure is what platforms collect. The wider economy is what the industry spends and generates across the full value chain. Production companies, talent agencies, UA firms, and AI tool providers all participate in the larger economy without appearing in platform revenue figures.