Practitioners in the micro-short drama industry know that the era of micro-short dramas lying down to make money is over. Nowadays, the domestic micro-short drama market is rapidly changing from a blue ocean to a red ocean, and wave after wave of people jump in, and before they have time to sharpen their sickles, they have become leeks.
Practitioners who have not caught up with this wave of craze do not have to worry, because the overseas micro-short drama market is in the development stage of domestic micro-short dramas one to two years ago, that is to say, there is a "time machine" dividend for short dramas to go overseas, and whoever can seize this opportunity can once again copy the opportunity of domestic micro-short dramas to get rich.
iResearch data shows that the scale of the domestic micro-short drama market reached 37.39 billion yuan last year, which is close to the total box office of cinema movies (54.915 billion yuan). It is estimated that in 2027, the market size of China's online micro-short dramas is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan.
According to Guohai Securities' "Report on the Depth of Chinese Short Dramas Going Overseas", the high value of the overseas short drama market space is 64.8 billion US dollars. Different from the involution of the domestic market, the overseas of micro-short dramas is 12 times that of the domestic Internet blue ocean track.
He Zexi, COO of ShortTV, said at a recent event that in the future, it is estimated that the overseas recharge market alone can reach 100 billion US dollars, and with IAA (In-App Advertisement) unlocking, brand short drama commercialization and other monetization methods, it can reach a market of 200 billion to 300 billion US dollars. At present, all overseas platforms cover only 50 million people, and with the proportion of domestic short video users covering short drama users, there is at least 1 billion potential users in the world, and the overall market still has 95% room for growth.
According to this statement, the overseas micro-short drama market is currently the state of the domestic micro-short drama market from the end of 21 to the first half of 22.
However, there are more uncertainties in going overseas than in China, and content creators need to be cautious.
First of all, although the overseas market is not yet mature, the competition pattern of one super and many strong has emerged.
ReelShort, which is currently at the head of the industry, started the earliest, contributing 52% of the downloads and 48% of the revenue of the current short drama overseas track, accounting for half of the overseas short drama. Although registered in Sunnyvale, Silicon Valley, ReelShort is actually owned by Crazy Maple Studio, an overseas subsidiary of Chinese Online.
ReelShort is primarily deployed in the North American market, with 69% of its revenue coming from the U.S. market. After the short drama became popular, ReelShort added a number of strong competitors from China, such as Dianzhong Technology DramaBox, Xinyue Technology GoodShort, Anyue Network FlexTV, Kyushu Culture ShortTV, and Reading Technology MoboReels and other short drama apps among the top 10 in the revenue list.
That is to say, at present, the overseas market has gone through the "competition among the heroes", forming a market pattern with a relatively high degree of concentration, and it takes greater efforts to break it.
Image source: AppGrowing
Secondly, the production cost of going overseas micro-short dramas is higher. The main thing here is the original drama.
At present, there are two mainstream production models for overseas micro-short dramas: one is to select domestic micro-short dramas with themes and content suitable for overseas markets, and directly launch them after translation and dubbing, which is referred to as translated dramas; And the latter is considered to be the main grasp of micro-short dramas going to sea.
Compared with translated dramas, the cost of local original dramas varies greatly depending on the region. A short drama for Southeast Asia, each episode is 1-3 minutes, and the overall number is 80-100 episodes, and its production is similar to that in China, or even slightly lower than in China, at about 500,000 yuan. The cost of short dramas in Europe and the United States is generally higher than that in Southeast Asia, and the average cost of an episode is $1,600 for ordinary urban love themes. The popular werewolf human-themed micro-short drama is much more expensive to produce due to the more complex costumes, generally $2,100 to $2,300 per episode, with a total production of more than 1 million yuan. Compared with the domestic mainstream production cost of 50-1 million, it is generally higher.
In addition, the cycle required for original dramas is also longer, from the script to filming and launching, it takes more than 1 month, or even longer, resulting in a very low production. Therefore, ReelShort has been online for more than a year, and there are currently only 30 micro-short dramas, because they are all localized original dramas.
Top row left to right: posters for the short plays "Never Divorce the Secret Billionaire Heir", "Fated My Taboo Alpha", "After Being Killed by My Husband, I Was Reborn and Won the Super Ball Award", and "How My Boss Became My Husband".
Even if the cost problem is solved, there is an even bigger dilemma ahead. The aesthetics, cultures, and market environments of domestic and overseas markets are different, and it is impossible to copy the domestic model, so we need to be patient to solve this difference. However, at this stage, domestic capital wants to get in the position as soon as possible, and the lack of time and capital investment makes it difficult for the producer to create excellent works that meet local aesthetics.
As more and more companies enter the micro-short drama, the competition in the overseas market is becoming more and more fierce, especially in the already routine themes such as "boss" and "revenge", which have been filmed badly, and it is becoming more and more difficult to come up with explosive models. Once the audience develops aesthetic fatigue, growth will hit a bottleneck.
In addition, overseas media have mixed reviews about the profit model of micro-short drama apps such as ReelShort, and the endless "gold coin + advertising method" has also been frequently complained about. It cannot be ruled out that there are also some non-market factors at work, after all, the time window between China and the United States is very sensitive.
In addition, the strict protection of workers' rights and interests overseas has also led to the fact that its production capacity cannot be as high as that in China. An unnamed micro-short drama star in Hengdian said that she could only sleep 4 hours a day during the filming of the short drama. In Europe and the United States, actors only work 8-10 hours a day, and no matter how long the actor is, he will stop working, and there will be union interference. This has led to a significant increase in the cost of filming micro-short dramas overseas and a lengthened production cycle.
Finally, there is not much time left for domestic wait-and-see enterprises, and now in addition to China, more and more countries are also aiming at the fat of micro-short dramas.
Inkitt, which started with German online articles and audiobooks, has been "silently" making short dramas, and its GalateaTV was launched in November last year, and a total of 5 short dramas have been launched, all of which are dominated by female perspectives. From the design of the overall app to the content and commercialization of micro-short dramas, it has a high degree of similarity with domestic micro-short drama overseas platforms.
In addition, PocketFM, the head audiobook platform known as the Indian Himalayas, has also begun to lay out micro-short dramas, and in the latest captured materials, PocketFM has seen the micro-short drama materials put by PocketFM, and its actors are the male protagonists of the previous ReelShort popular work "The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband" (The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband).
Another practitioner revealed that some local manufacturers in the United States have been contacted, and in the face of this wave of Internet dividends, American entrepreneurs are obviously ready to move.
It is foreseeable that the overseas micro-short drama track is on the eve of take-off, and more and more practitioners will join in which the competition will be more fierce and the market will be more lively.
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