Mobile Eyes Are Choosing Microdrama Over Netflix and Prime. Omdia Has the Numbers.

For the first time, daily mobile viewing time on microdrama apps has pulled ahead of the streamers that defined a generation. Omdia analysis covered by Variety shows ReelShort users averaging 38 minutes a day in Q2. Netflix mobile viewers clocked 24.8 minutes. Amazon Prime Video, 26.9. Disney+, 23. Maria Rua Aguete, Omdia’s head of media and entertainment, calls it a signal that “microdramas are no longer a niche experiment.”

The data lands just weeks after Holywater Tech and Owl & Co. released the first ‘State of Microdrama’ report (noted by Deadline), putting dedicated microdrama apps at $4 billion outside China. The $150 billion figure carried in much of the coverage counts the wider vertical video economy, meaning TikTok, Reels, Shorts and Snap, which the report has growing 41% year over year. The report also found male audiences on Holywater’s MyDrama platform surged 2,800% in seven quarters, now making up 30.3% of monthly active users.

India is writing its own chapter. A Kantar study for ShareChat and Moj, reported by The Wrap, found 80% of Indian audiences now prefer microdramas, with 86% spending more than 15 minutes daily. On Story TV, the Eloelo Group’s platform, users average over 95 minutes a day as the service releases 150 original shows each month.

The incumbents are responding. Disney+ added Verts, a short-form feed, in March; 40% of mobile users have tapped into it, The Hollywood Reporter notes. Roku, meanwhile, just launched a 24-hour channel of AI-generated video from Fairground, one of four new free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) offerings (TechCrunch has the breakdown). And GammaTime, the microdrama studio founded by Bill Block, named Amy Sullivan (a DramaBox and COL alum) its head of development, signaling that the talent pipeline between Web2 streamers and vertical shops keeps deepening.