Short dramas, mini-games and AI-generated clips are emerging as the new growth engines of China’s short-video economy, offering platforms and advertisers steadier returns than the livestreaming boom that once defined the industry.

The trend was underscored Friday at Chinese short-video and social networking platform Kuaishou’s annual conference, where the company said creators earned more than 20 million yuan ($2.8 million) from short dramas between June and August this year, while viewing time for the genre rose 44% in the first half of the year.

While mini-games brought in another 18 million yuan for creators in the second quarter, the company said AI videos viewed in July were up 321% compared with six months earlier, with new clips going viral daily.

Kuaishou founder Cheng Yixiao said at the conference that short videos, unlike livestreams, tend to circulate longer among users and make it easier for creators to build a “solid online persona.”

Launched in 2011 before Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, Kuaishou also reported total revenue of 35 billion yuan in the second quarter, up 13% year-on-year. More than 26 million creators earned income on the platform in the past year, with nearly 12% surpassing monthly earnings of 1,000 yuan.

The boom comes as millions of Chinese seek to earn a living online, often with limited returns. A report released last November by the China Association for Performing Arts and Kuaishou said over 15 million people considered livestreaming their main profession by the end of 2023, though more than 80% fulltime livestreamers earned less than 8,000 yuan a month.

Other domestic social platforms remain more reliant on livestreaming. According to a Douyin report in December, livestreaming accounted for nearly two-thirds of its 15.4 billion product orders last year. And lifestyle app Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote outside China, reported an eightfold jump in new merchant registrations in 2024.

Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.

(Header image: VCG)