The good news for Hollywood is that video streaming app downloads skyrocketed in 2025, as well as their revenue. The news that may give some executives who specialize in traditional storytelling pause is that the growth was primarily driven by microdrama apps.
That’s according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower’s annual report on the state of mobile, which was published on Wednesday. Video streaming app downloads increased globally by nearly 39 percent last year while their revenue increased nearly 18 percent, the report authors wrote. And while short drama app downloads grew more than 100 percent year over year, traditional streaming app downloads fell by more than four percent.
“In 2025, short drama apps aggressively scaled their market presence. Driven by a rapid proliferation of localized productions, Short Drama downloads skyrocketed to 2.3 billion for the full year,” the authors note. “This momentum culminated in a landmark Q4, where a 186 percent [year over year] explosion allowed the subgenre to overtake traditional OTT streaming downloads, which trailed with a 7 percent decline in the same period.”
The sea change was clear in the rankings of the most downloaded apps globally, which was topped by verticals apps DramaBox and ReelShort, followed by Netflix. Amazon Prime Video came in sixth and Disney+ tenth. (TikTok and YouTube were not included in the video streaming app category in the study, which lumped them in with social media apps.)
In the U.S., traditional streaming entertainment still reigned on the charts, even as microdrama apps took prime slots. Netflix ranked first in downloads, followed by ReelShort, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video and Tubi. DramaBox came in sixth, just before Peacock TV and Paramount+.
The issue for both short drama apps and traditional streaming apps, however, is that time spent on video streaming did not significantly increase in 2025. Streaming screentime increased 8 percent globally and only three percent in the U.S. “This suggests that short drama apps are cannibalizing the time share previously held by traditional OTT platforms and social media apps, in addition to expanding the total viewing pie,” the report authors conclude.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for anyone who has followed the rise of microdramas, Asia — where the format took off during the COVID-19 pandemic — had the biggest share of time spent on short drama apps at 54 percent. But Latin America was the fastest adopter, rising to almost 16 percent of total video entertainment time by the final quarter of 2025.
Europe and North America took a relatively minor share of the total viewing pie. Europe accounted for around four percent of total viewing time in the fourth quarter of 2025 and North America a little over five percent. “This suggests that traditional OTT streaming and long-form viewing habits remain more deeply entrenched in Western markets,” the authors write.
North America still dominated the total viewing time for traditional, over-the-top streaming apps. In the final quarter of 2025, the region accounted for a little over 83 percent of viewing time globally. Total time spent on these apps was down slightly year over year, from about 2.496 million hours in the final quarter of 2024 to 2.457 million during the same period in 2025.
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