ByteDance’s Next Global Hit After TikTok? Inside the Meteoric Rise of Hongguo Short Drama App

A New Model for Mobile Entertainment

In 2025, a new entertainment powerhouse is emerging from China’s digital landscape: Hongguo Short Drama App (红果短剧). Backed by ByteDance, the creator of TikTok, Hongguo is quickly redefining how users consume, engage with, and pay for video content. Far from being just another video app, Hongguo is pioneering the next frontier of mobile storytelling—snackable, serialized, and monetizable.

Entertainment Charts Now Dominated by Short Drama Apps

In the Entertainment category of China’s App Store free chart, Hongguo Short Drama (红果短剧) ranks #1 for over 7 days. The top 10 is filled with short drama apps and video platforms like Hippo (河马剧场), Bilibili (哔哩哔哩), TikTok (抖音), iQIYI (爱奇艺) and WeTV(腾讯视频).

Top Ranked iOS App Store Apps

This reflects the strong demand for mobile-first video content, particularly bite-sized dramas and high-frequency updates. Notably, more than three short drama apps appear in the top 10, signaling a major shift toward snackable entertainment formats driven by algorithmic feeds and aggressive ad campaigns.

What Is Hongguo Short Drama?

App Type: Serialized short drama streaming

Developer: Beijing Bimo Liuxiang Technology Co., Ltd.

Launch: Soft launch in mid-2023; breakout growth in early 2024

Platform: iOS only (as of June 2025), via Apple App Store

Why iOS First?

Hongguo’s initial iOS-only strategy is no accident. ByteDance likely chose iOS for:

• Higher user purchasing power

• More accurate behavioral tracking

• Tighter content moderation during early testing

Meanwhile, Android users are diverted to Tomato Drama (番茄剧场), creating segmentation for A/B testing monetization and content strategies.

Designed for Modern Viewing Habits

Unlike traditional platforms that rely on UGC, Hongguo delivers professionally produced micro-dramas, usually:

• 3–5 minutes per episode
• Entire series completed in <30 minutes

Perfect for fragmented attention spans—commutes, breaks, or late-night scrolling.

💲How did the entertainment app grow revenue by 37% in 2 months? Click here.

Demographics: Who's Watching Hongguo Short Drama?

Hongguo’s audience is predominantly female (75%), with the largest age group being 25–35 years old, followed by 18–25. This reflects China’s growing appetite for bite-sized, emotionally driven drama formats—particularly among urban Gen Z and young millennial women who engage during fragmented time slots like commutes, lunch breaks, or before bed.

This demographic also aligns with iOS users’ higher purchasing intent, reinforcing Hongguo’s iOS-first rollout strategy.

Hongguo Short Drama: Demographics

What Users Think: Ratings & User Sentiment

With an impressive 4.76-star rating across over 390,000 reviews, the app’s strong reception further validates Hongguo's segmentation strategy and content fit for this demographic.

Hongguo: Rating & Reviews in China

To understand the emotional drivers behind this, we analyzed user sentiment using Review Sentiment Analysis.

Hongguo: Review Sentiment Analysis

The Keyword Cloud above reflects the top 25 recurring keywords from user reviews— highlighting what users love and what they complain about most.

🤖 AI Review Summary

Most users are satisfied with Hongguo, with 65% of reviews being positive. Only 15% are negative, while 10% mention bugs and another 10% suggest improvements.

Users love the app’s rich content, especially short dramas, novels, and videos. They also like the smooth performance and simple, easy-to-use interface.

Some users asked for better iPad support and fewer ads, but these issues are less common.

👍 What Users Like Most:

• Content Variety: Many enjoy the wide range of short dramas, movies, and novels.

• Fewer Ads: Users appreciate that there aren’t too many ads.

• User Experience: The app is easy to use and runs smoothly.

• Rewards: Some like earning coins or cash while watching dramas.

Hongguo: AI Review Summary

🔍 Notable Insights:

• “短剧” (Short Drama) was mentioned 663 times with an average rating of 24, showing strong user approval.

• "广告" (Ads) appeared 592 times with a low average rating of 95, highlighting frequent user complaints.

• "红果" (Hongguo) came up 350 times with the highest average rating of 4.55, suggesting it is a well-loved app element that resonates strongly with users.

👉 Click here for more details.

Explore 2026 Mobile Game Marketing Strategies

Explore how industry experts break down 2026 mobile game marketing trends, creative strategies, and scalable growth approaches.

Learn More

How Hongguo Meets User Needs with Serialized Short Dramas

By resolving these frictions with thoughtful format design and reward mechanisms, Hongguo doesn’t just entertain—it conditions behavior for repeat visits and eventual conversion.

Hongguo's Expanding Ecosystem

Beyond short drama, Hongguo has expanded to include movies, web series, audiobooks, novels, and comics, building a broader content ecosystem that boosts stickiness. The app also launched a premium short drama initiative, combining mass free content with high-quality productions in partnership with major studios.

Hongguo’s user growth strategy mirrors Pinduoduo (拼多多): starting with free offerings to build scale, followed by high-quality, diverse content to sustain interest. This creates a flywheel effect—more users bring in more advertisers and creators, fueling better content, deeper engagement, and stronger monetization.

The Bigger Picture: Short Drama Series Driving a New Era in Digital Entertainment

The rise of platforms like Hongguo marks more than just a breakout mobile app—it signals a major transformation in the online video streaming industry, shifting from costly, long-form TV series to mobile-first short-form video content tailored for data-driven performance.

Initially emerging in 2018 as a user-generated video trend on platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou, short dramas quickly evolved. By 2021, the space began to see professional short drama production, and by 2025, it has grown into a structured ecosystem—complete with monetization models, content studios, and standardized short video formats.

Free short drama apps like Hongguo excel by delivering higher ad ROI than traditional streaming content. Early campaigns reported returns as high as 2.0—well above the industry average of 1.2—making them an ideal model for advertisers, mobile app developers, and digital media platforms.

📽 Short Video Apps Monetization: The Secret Behind the Phenomenon of Micro-Dramas

Strategic Move: TikTok + Hongguo Launch Short Drama Copyright Center

In May 2025, ByteDance merged Hongguo’s and TikTok’s short drama teams under a newly formed Short Drama Copyright Center, aiming to:

• Centralize IP acquisition and original script development

• Streamline third-party content studio partnerships

• Set industry benchmarks for short drama formats

• Avoid internal competition and redundant licensing

This move solidifies ByteDance’s commitment to industrializing short drama production, creating a full-stack supply chain from script to screen.

🔎 Find Out More: What Makes TikTok a Sensation and a Money-Making Machine?

ByteDance’s Ecosystem Advantage: TikTok as Global Distribution Backbone

TikTok (Douyin in China) isn’t just a marketing channel—it’s the core of ByteDance’s app growth engine. Hongguo benefits from:

• Algorithmic Matching: TikTok recommends Hongguo drama snippets to highly relevant users, cutting CAC (customer acquisition cost).

• Cross-App Login: Seamless onboarding via TikTok credentials increases conversion rates.

• Creator Ecosystem: Shared talent pool, with creators cross-publishing on both platforms.

• Data Loop Closure: Similar to how FoxData’s Meta Ad Creative works, every piece of ad creative is tracked in real time—its performance data feeds directly into the optimization system, enabling rapid iteration and smarter creative decisions at scale.

💡 ByteDance doesn’t just own content—it owns the entire content lifecycle: from creation to promotion to conversion.

Key Takeaways for App Developers and Marketers

📽 Narrative wins: Storytelling > randomness. Structured content boosts completion and engagement.

📱 Frictionless onboarding: Easy logins post-hook keep user flows clean.

💸 Scenario-based monetization: Works better than hard paywalls—especially for emotional content.

🔄 Ecosystem synergy: Cross-app traffic flow (TikTok ↔ Hongguo) dramatically lowers cost-per-user.

🏭 Centralized IP control: A must for scaling short-form content profitably.

📊 Data-backed iteration: Tools like FoxData help replicate and optimize the winning model.

Final Thoughts: Why Hongguo Short Drama Matters Now

Hongguo isn’t just another viral app—it’s a new model for mobile entertainment. With over 8 million monthly downloads and a format that fits today’s fast-paced lifestyles, it proves that short, well-crafted stories can drive real engagement and revenue.

For app creators and marketers, Hongguo shows how combining strong storytelling, smart monetization, and platform synergy can lead to rapid growth. As ByteDance pushes this format worldwide, short drama isn’t just a trend—it’s reshaping how people watch, engage, and pay. In today’s digital content world, storytelling is becoming the strategy—and Hongguo Short Drama is leading the way.

🎯 Want to build the next viral entertainment app?

Use FoxData to uncover what truly drives installs, engagement, and monetization.

👉 Start your free trial with FoxData - turn insights into installs, retention and revenue.

📚 Recommended for You:

• Kuaishou Debut Kling AI 2.0: A Strategic Leap in China's AI Video Race

• How ReelShort Became a Great Hit Around the Globe, Especially the USA

• 2025 Video Editing Apps Showdown: Instagram's 'Edits' Takes Aim at TikTok's CapCut