The archive · Consumer Apps · Strategic decision · 2023–2025
Hongguo's free-plus-ads bet tops China's App Store: 236M MAU in short drama
ByteDance's Hongguo made short drama free and ad-funded: 236M MAU by Sept 2025, #2 on China's free chart, ¥189M script payouts in three months.
Hongguo (ByteDance)
What the business is
Hongguo is ByteDance's free short-drama app for mainland China, launched by the Douyin group in May 2023 and fully online that August. Episodes run one to three minutes across genres such as urban romance and underdog revenge; the app carries over 15,000 shows, adds about 1,000 a month, and monetizes through advertising while viewers watch free.
How it started
The Douyin group launched Hongguo in May 2023 and it went fully live that August with one- to three-minute episodes. After briefly testing paid membership, the app settled on a free-plus-ads model. It entered the 100-million-MAU club in September 2024 and ended that year at #1 on the App Store China free chart.
What happened
Through 2025 the lead compounded. By September, Hongguo's MAU reached 236 million, overtaking Bilibili's 227 million and ranking fourth in online video. On November 17, 2025, ByteDance held the entire top five of China's App Store free chart, with Doubao first and Hongguo second. At the first Hongguo creators conference in Taiyuan that month, creator-operations head Yang Jie reported October script payouts above ¥70 million and a three-month total above ¥189 million; star actor Wang Kaimu's estimated share passed ¥1.5 million, with two other actors above ¥1 million each. The creator platform completed testing and opened to writers, producers and actors on November 27, 2025.
How it ended up
Still running near the top of China's free chart as of late November 2025, ranked #2 behind Doubao with 236M MAU a quarter earlier, as ByteDance opened the platform to the full creator chain.
Background
Hongguo is ByteDance's free short-drama app for mainland China, launched by the Douyin group in May 2023 and fully online that August. Episodes run one to three minutes across genres like urban romance and underdog revenge. The bet was the reverse of the category's founding model: instead of selling episodes one by one, Hongguo would make viewing free and finance it with advertising.
After briefly testing paid membership, the app committed to free-plus-ads and let ByteDance's assets do the rest: sister app Tomato Novel supplied the pipeline, with more than 600,000 signed writers, a 1.5-million-title library and over 6,000 works already in adaptation. Hongguo entered the 100-million-MAU club in September 2024 and ended that year at #1 on the App Store China free chart.
In 2025 the lead compounded. QuestMobile, cited by Times Finance, measured 236 million monthly active users in September, overtaking Bilibili's 227 million and ranking Hongguo fourth among online-video apps. On November 17, 2025, ByteDance held the entire top five of China's App Store free chart, with Doubao first and Hongguo second; the app carried over 15,000 shows and added about 1,000 a month.
The platform then opened to the whole supply chain. At the first Hongguo creators conference in Taiyuan, creator-operations head Yang Jie reported monthly script revenue sharing of over ¥50M in August, ¥66M in September and ¥73M in October, more than ¥189M in three months; actor Wang Kaimu's estimated share passed ¥1.5 million. The creator platform opened to writers, producers and actors on November 27, 2025.
What has to be true
- Per-episode payments capped short drama's audience, so a free, ad-funded version could unlock a far larger base than the paid apps that defined the genre.
- ByteDance's Tomato Novel library gave Hongguo an unmatched content pipeline, with 600,000+ writers and 6,000+ works already in adaptation.
- QuestMobile's September 2025 reading of 236M MAU, past Bilibili's 227M, showed the model scaling beyond the niche that paid short drama occupied.
- Revenue sharing tied to a show's full life cycle recruited creators at scale: ¥189M in three months of script payouts, with individual actors above ¥1.5M.
What can be applied
In a mass content market, free-plus-ads out-scales pay-per-episode: Hongguo turned ByteDance's catalog into China's #2 free app and #4 video service by MAU.
Aftermath
Through late November 2025 Hongguo sat #2 on China's App Store free chart behind Doubao, and QuestMobile measured 236M monthly users in September 2025, fourth among video apps. Its creator platform opened November 27 after monthly script payouts hit ¥73M in October, and ByteDance planned prepaid revenue sharing to shorten cash cycles. Rivals responded: iQIYI folded short drama into membership, Youku built a dedicated unit and Tencent expanded free drama, so the lead faces well-funded competition. The sources do not cover whether Hongguo kept #2 after that date.
Sources
- ByteDance tops the App Store: all five of China's free-chart leaders are its apps (Doubao #1, Hongguo #2)
- Over ¥100M in payouts in three months: Hongguo's ledger shows ByteDance's short-drama ambition (QuestMobile data)
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