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QuestMobile released its autumn report on November 3, 2026, stating that Hongguo Short Drama surpassed Doubao in user scale in September. Currently, the content of this report is only seen in Zhidongxi's analysis article on IDC MaaS market data; the article mentions that Hongguo Short Drama, Fanqie Novel, and Douyin form ByteDance's content closed loop, but does not disclose the specific user data and statistical methodology of the QuestMobile report.
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Browse reports and discussion by time. Their evidence levels remain distinct.
Nov 4
East Money
Hongguo's user base surpasses Doubao's, as the commercialization tipping point for AI film and television draws institutional attention
QuestMobile data shows that in September 2026, Hongguo's free short drama de-duplicated user base reached 430 million, surpassing Doubao's 419 million and making it the second-largest app in the Douyin group. The lowest per-minute production cost for domestic AI animated dramas is 350 yuan, and the production cycle has been compressed from 90 days to about 10 days; overseas AI animated dramas already have more than 150 million active users. Soochow Securities believes that AI film and television has crossed the commercialization tipping point, and Guosen Securities noted that after the release of Seedance 2.0, the number of new simulated-live-action dramas added monthly on the Douyin side rose to 25,000.
Nov 2
Zhidongxi
Volcano Engine Takes 45.1% of China's MaaS Market, with Seedance Driving Over Half of Revenue
An IDC report shows that in the first half of 2026, China's MaaS market reached 10.63 billion yuan, up 889.4% year over year, with Volcano Engine ranking first at a 45.1% share, but in the large language model MaaS market it ranked only third at 10.2%. Zhidongxi analysis argues that the video generation model Seedance contributed more than half of Volcano's MaaS revenue, and that, combined with the content loop formed by Fanqie Novel, Hongguo Short Dramas and Douyin, this was the key to ByteDance's rise to the top. The article also points out three challenges: its revenue structure is overly weighted toward video generation, the stickiness of Agent Plan subscriptions remains to be verified, and the return on compute investment.