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July 2025 Vertical Short Drama Market + August Heat Check

July 2025 at a glance: 100M+ downloads, $209M+ in net revenue

Real Reel™

Real Reel™

— 3 min read
July 2025 Vertical Short Drama Market + August Heat Check

July 2025 was a milestone for vertical short dramas.

Across 256 apps, monthly downloads passed 108 million for the first time (up 22.14% vs. June), while net revenue from paid episodes and memberships topped $209 million (up 8.96%).

Where the growth came from

  • Revenue leader: United States. July revenue reached $95.53M (up 6.31% MoM), accounting for 45.64% of global net revenue. Downloads were 9.50M (up 15.44%).
  • Download leader: India. July downloads hit 21.078M (up 191.31% MoM). Net revenue was $1.714M (up 6.68%), suggesting a market tilted toward ad-supported monetization (IAA) rather than pay-per-episode.
  • Other top download markets (July): Indonesia, Brazil, the United States, Mexico, the Philippines, Colombia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and Peru. It was the first time Saudi Arabia and Peru appeared in the top ten, a sign that the format is spreading quickly in the Middle East and Latin America.

Platforms: who’s winning

  • Top tier by revenue (July):
    ReelShort     ~$48.739M; DramaBox $40M+.
  • Strong second tier:
    NetShort     ~$18.904M; GoodShort ~$17.260M; DramaWave ~$17.029M; ShortMax ~$11.378M.
  • Top by downloads:
    ReelShort    , DramaBox, and Kuku TV each cleared 10M+ monthly downloads. Kuku TV was the breakout, adding ~11.064M downloads and finishing #3, only ~1.16M behind DramaBox. It’s also the only India-based platform appearing in both the download and revenue top tens, underscoring the power of localized content and distribution.

Early-August momentum (Aug 4–10)

Across the Top 30 titles, combined engagement was ~49.5M, 8.6% lower than the prior week, but 17 titles still topped the 1M threshold. Genres cutting through: organized-crime romance, taboo student-professor romance, and AI-inflected drama.

For the week of Aug 4–10, ad-creative volume was led by:

  • My Drama — ~52K
  • DramaWave — ~46K
  • Kuku TV — ~32K

Across the Top 30 apps, total creatives reached ~351K (+11.6% WoW). Growth chart (Top 20) shows +51,043 creatives (+30.99% WoW), with My Drama adding ~11K and DramaWave ~7K. Primary channels: Facebook and Instagram.

Audience snapshot of My Drama: Female viewers made up ~92.32% of the audience over the last 30 days. Age skew: 25–34 (42.48%) > 35–44 (30.5%) > 18–24 (16.45%). That profile explains why romance-forward and “forbidden” tropes are over-indexing.

What we can see from this data are…

  1. Monetization gravity stays in the U.S. Even with massive download spikes elsewhere, the U.S. remains the world’s single largest pay market. If you produce for English-speaking audiences, keep optimizing for subscription and pay-per-episode ARPPU while testing ad-supported bundles for broader reach.
  2. India is all about scale + ads (for now). If you localize stories and run UA efficiently, you can build reach fast; expect lower immediate ARPU but stronger ad yield if your completion rates are high.
  3. Local players can break out. Kuku TV shows how fast a market-native app can climb with the right slate and UA playbook. Expect more region-first entrants to punch into global top tens.
  4. Genre signals are clear. Mafia romance, taboo relationships, and AI-tinged melodramas are driving watch intent. On vertical, extreme close-ups + fast-moving reversals still convert best.
  5. UA is a knife fight. Creative volume is surging at the top. To keep CAC predictable, rotate creatives faster, test “Episode X twist” hooks, and match audience cohorts (e.g., women 25–44) with tailored copy and thumbnails.

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