Was Quibi just a little ahead of its time? Jeffrey Katzenberg, the founder of Quibi, eventually said that the COVID-19 plague was to blame for the failure of his short-form video app. But maybeNew data from app stores indicates a resurgence of the Quibi-popularized concept of slicing original shows into short clips for quick viewing. In the first three months of 2024, 66 short drama apps, such as ReelShort and DramaBox, brought in a record $146 million from customers around the world.
According to data from app information company Appfigures, this is more than 8,000% more than the $1.8 million that was made in the first quarter of 2023, when there were only 21 apps available. Since then, the Since then, the company has released 45 more apps, increasing the total number of downloads to 121 million and contributing approximately $245 million in gross consumer spending.
People spent $65 million on short drama apps in March 2024, up from $619,000 in March 2023. This is a 10,500% rise.
According to statistics from Appfigures, revenue growth started to speed up in the fall of 2023. This led to a huge increase in revenue between February and March of this year, when it jumped 56% to $65.7 million from $42 million. There are more apps now, which is partly to blame for the rise in sales, but marketing, ad spending, and customer attention also played a part.
In the first quarter of 2024, ReelShort ($5.2 million) and DramaBox ($35 million) were the top two apps by income. That’s about 37% and 24% of the money that the top 10 apps make, respectively.
In Q1, the third-ranked app ShortTV made $17 million around the world, which was 12% of the total.
These apps are interesting because the material is better than Quibi’s previous attempts to make a name for itself in this field. It’s a lot worse than Quibi’s, and Quibi’s wasn’t always great. Last year, Eltrys wrote about ReelShort, saying that the stories in it are “like bits and pieces from low-quality soap operas or as if those mobile storytelling games came to life.”
Even though the acting and writing are bad, the apps seem to have found some fans.
The U.S. is by far the best market for this group of apps, both in terms of users and income. Overall, though, the numbers show that different countries are getting different amounts of material and paying for it.
After the U.S., the top markets by installs are Indonesia, India, the Philippines, and Brazil. After the U.S., the top markets by sales are the U.K., Australia, Canada, and the Philippines.
In Q1 2024, users downloaded short drama apps nearly 37 million times, a 992% increase from the 3.4 million downloads in Q1 2023. In terms of downloads, ReelShort and ShortTV are the top two apps. ReelShort has 13.3 million installs, which is 37% of all installs, and ShortTV has 10 million installs, which is 27%. DramaBox was No. 3 in terms of sales, with 7 million (19%) downloads. It was No. 2 in terms of user spending.
Similar to how app stores generally operate, iOS generates the majority of revenue (63%), while Android generates the majority of downloads (67%).
Many people are interested in these apps, but not nearly as many are interested in short-form video and live video, which are their main rivals. Short drama apps made up 6.7% of all three types of apps, which is more than the 0.15% they had a year ago. However, there is a larger market for video apps, which brings in a lot more cash.
One example is that the top 10 apps in all three groups made $1.8 billion in Q1. This includes TikTok and Disney+.
