Insightrackr has released the July 2025 Global Short Drama App Download and Revenue Rankings based on its monitoring data of the global mobile market.
The rankings are sorted according to the app downloads and overall revenue calculated by Insightrackr, presenting the Top 15 Short Drama Apps by Downloads and Top 15 Short Drama Apps by Revenues. It also dissects the advertising and creative strategies of the popular cases in July.
Spotlight Case Studies: Pick Drama / Dot Drama / Pocket TV
Top 15 Short Drama Apps by Downloads
- Who are the Top Players
According to Insightrackr’s app download rankings, DramaBox retained its position as the most downloaded app in July. ReelShort by Crazy Maple Studio returned to the top three, while India-based MEBIGO LABS’ Kuku TV ranked third.
Top Short Drama App Downloads – July 2025
- Performance Fluctuations of New Products
India’s homegrown short drama app QuickTV continued its strong momentum after the surge in June, with downloads in July rising by 45.07% MoM, moving up to 7th place. In addition to promoting original Indian dramas, QuickTV also distributes translated dramas from China — click here for a recap.
July also saw a wave of new short drama apps making a strong debut in the download rankings: Pick Drama skyrocketed 3854.9% MoM to claim 8th place, while Dot Drama jumped 2150.73%, breaking into the Top 15.
Meanwhile, Short Reels saw a downturn in July, with downloads dropping 26.31% MoM, falling to 13th place.
Top 15 Short Drama Apps by Revenues
- Who are the Top Players
According to Insightrackr’s app revenue rankings, there was little change at the top, with NetShort, DramaBox, and ReelShort still occupying the top three spots — all posting revenue growth.
Top Short Drama App Revenue – June 2025
- Revenue-soaring Products
Pocket TV from Pocket FM became the fastest-growing app by revenue in July, soaring 635.7% MoM and jumping 30 spots to rank 14th.
FlickReels and ShortMax also delivered strong performances, with July revenue doubling MoM to secure 7th and 10th place, respectively.
Short Drama Advertising Case Analysis
01 Pick Drama
- When did the Scale-up Begin?
Pick Drama, developed by createwonderful, was launched on Google Play in late April. Insightrackr’s tracking data shows that ad creatives for Pick Drama began to roll out gradually in June, then surged from mid-July, with the number of active creatives soaring to 180 in a single day.
Overview of Pick Drama’s Advertising Strategy and Creative Approach
From the traffic channels perspective, most of Pick Drama’s creatives are run on Facebook. Excluding data from ad libraries, Pangle and TikTok serve as the main supplementary channels. The casual game Mahjong 3D Triple is a key sub-channel following TikTok.
The top three regions targeted by Pick Drama’s creatives each account for only about 3%, indicating a recent strategy of broad, global market coverage to maximize volume. In terms of downloads, the leading market is Indonesia with 10.77%, followed by the U.S. at 10.45%, and Mexico at 8.25%.
Revenue mainly comes from regions aligned with the creative targeting and download distribution, focusing primarily on the Americas markets of the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil.
- Classic Creative Patterns for IAA Short Drama Products
In terms of creatives, Pick Drama currently focuses mainly on clips from translated Chinese dramas, suggesting it is likely a Chinese product going global, with IAA or hybrid monetization as its primary revenue model.
The creative approach resembles typical patterns previously summarized by Insightrackr, such as using AI voiceovers to narrate the plot instead of re-dubbing the original dialogue, or mixing clips from multiple popular series to highlight the richness of available content. (Click here for a recap)
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02 Dot Drama
- Latin America-focused Advertising Strategy
Dot Drama was also launched on Google Play in April and began ramping up its ad spend in July. According to Insightrackr’s monitoring, the number of active creatives surged to nearly 250 in a single day.
Overview of Dot Drama’s Advertising Strategy and Creative Approach
Dot Drama primarily runs ads on Facebook, with TikTok serving as a supplementary traffic channel. Its creatives are distributed fairly evenly across major global markets, but Spanish, English, and Portuguese are the top three copy languages, reflecting a focus on these language regions.
Download sources confirm this trend: Brazil leads with 15.56%, followed by Indonesia at 14.07% and Nigeria at 9.25%, showing a strong presence in high-growth markets.
In terms of revenue, Brazil is the top market, accounting for 13.74%, followed by Turkey and South Korea.
- Creatives Tailored to Visual Preferences
Regarding ad creatives, Dot Drama uses clips from both translated Chinese dramas and local Western series. The creative strategy follows a common pattern for IAA short drama products — mixing clips from multiple shows with AI voiceover narration, emphasizing the key selling point that all series are available to watch for free.
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Notably, some Spanish and Portuguese creatives feature very prominent pop-up captions or windows that even partially obscure the underlying drama clips. This design choice is likely intended to cater to Latin American users’ preference for strong visual impact, helping to better highlight the product’s key selling points.
03 Pocket TV
- Organic Localized Strategy
Pocket TV is developed by India-based Pocket FM, which originally focused on audio content like audiobooks and podcasts before launching the short drama app Pocket TV. This app is quite similar to Kuku TV and QuickTV, which we analyzed in our previous report (click here to read the recap).
The downloads and revenue of Pocket TV primarily come from the Indian domestic market.
Overview of Pocket TV’s Advertising Strategy and Creative Approach
Pocket TV mainly advertises on Facebook, with AdMob as a secondary channel. However, its daily active creatives usually stay below 100, indicating paid user acquisition is not its primary growth strategy.
- AI-generated Creatives
In terms of creatives, Pocket TV features both original Indian dramas and translated Chinese series. Recently, it has heavily promoted an original drama called Gambler, using many high-quality video clips to highlight the show’s production value.
Additionally, Pocket TV employs AI-generated content in its ads—specifically, videos combining multiple AI-created images with AI voiceover narration, creating a “storytelling through images” effect.
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Clips from Gambler |
AI-generated creative |
That’s all for this issue. As we can see, Chinese short drama products going global, along with translated Chinese dramas, remain highly popular. IAA short drama apps continue to rely on classic creative techniques like clip mixing and emphasizing free access. Beyond AI-powered dubbing and subtitles, using AI to directly generate creatives has also become a new approach for short drama advertisers.
In conclusion, amid increasing competition from free short drama products and intensified market reshuffling, leading apps continue to build strong competitive barriers through large-scale creative deployment, mature advertising strategies, and proven creative approaches.
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