Vertical micro-dramas: the Asian revolution transforming digital entertainment in Latin America

Since 2025, platforms offering short dramas in vertical format have dominated the rankings of the most downloaded entertainment apps. By October 2025, there were at least 37 apps of this type. These are very young companies, mostly from Asia. In addition to new content, they propose “gamification” as a revenue strategy, a novelty in the video business but very common in the world of mobile games. Although there is a flood of competitors, the AVoD Kwai platform has dominated this format in Brazil for years, with its own productions and a focus on advertising. The craze for short content has already attracted the two giants in the region: Globo and TelvisaUnivisión. Micro-dramas are also known as mini-dramas or vertical dramas. The format originated in China and in 2024 generated revenues of $6.9 billion, more than the country's entire box office. In 2022, this model began a phase of international expansion. Reelshort, owned by Crazy Maple Studio, associated with China's COL Group, a leader in the vertical segment, was a hit in the United States and opened the door to new competitors. Two other major players in Latin America are DramaBox, the leading global platform, and Shortmax, the third in terms of download volume. Dataxis identified 37 platforms focused on micro-dramas operating in Latin America. Eighteen were from China, six from Singapore, and three from the United States. Most were very new companies: 15 had been founded in 2025 (10 in Q2) and another 14 in 2024. Reelshort, the longest-running, has been in existence since August 2022. Despite their short history, 19 of the competitors had exceeded 10 million downloads globally. The offerings had very similar formats and designs across companies. Each episode lasted between 1 and 3 minutes. And a series could have between 70 and 150 of these very short units. The audience was captured on social media, and that's where the “gamification” began. Some episodes were released free of charge—no more than 15% of the total—and the rest could only be unlocked in the app by paying for them with virtual “coins.” The “coins” could be obtained in two ways. They could be purchased in the app store or earned as a reward for watching advertisements or completing other tasks (visiting the site daily, staying for at least 5 minutes, following the platform on social media).  However, the reward system often led to a dead end because the rewards were low and only allowed for slow progress, or because the major narrative events were always behind a paywall. If the incentive system was not well-balanced, it was reflected in poor ratings. And young platforms tended to be loaded with poor ratings. Coin stores allowed users to purchase everything...