China’s Online Audio-Visual Industry Booms, with User Scale Hitting 1.099 Billion

On April 15th, the Report on China’s Online Audio-Visual Development (2026) was released in Chengdu, shedding light on the steady development of China’s online audio-visual industry. The report shows that by the end of December 2025, the number of online audio-visual users in China had reached 1.099 billion, ranking first among all Internet applications and becoming the digital service carrier with the widest penetration and largest user coverage in the country.

According to China News Service, Zhou Jie, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Netcasting Services Association, said in an interview, "Amid the increasingly fierce competition for users’ attention and the ever-enriching supply of Internet applications, online audio-visual has surpassed instant messaging, online payment, online shopping and search engines to become a digital service carrier connecting various industries and hundreds of millions of people."

The industry’s market scale has maintained steady growth. The report indicates that in 2025, the market scale of China’s online audio-visual industry reached nearly 1.29 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%. By the end of December 2025, the number of enterprises in the industry was about 801,900, up 5.9% year-on-year, among which micro-enterprises accounted for 87.8%.

In terms of regional distribution of enterprises, first-tier cities remain highlands for industrial resource agglomeration. According to China.org.cn, new first-tier cities have become important growth poles driven by micro-short drama policies, while the proportion of enterprises in third-tier and below cities has increased year-on-year, showing a shift from "single-point agglomeration" to "comprehensive development".

Short videos have shown unique vitality. The report reveals that among major Internet applications with a usage rate of over 80% by the end of 2025, short videos were the only segment with double growth in both user scale and usage rate, while others such as online payment and instant messaging saw a decline.

"Short videos remain the most important application for new Internet users," Zhou Jie noted. By December 2025, 44.6% of new Internet users used short videos for the first time online, 32.2 percentage points higher than instant messaging, the second most popular application.

User stickiness and content quality have improved simultaneously. The report shows that in December 2025, online audio-visual users spent an average of 201 minutes per day on the service, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%. Among them, micro-short dramas accounted for 129 minutes per day per user, up 28.4% year-on-year, surpassing long videos to rank second among audio-visual segments, only after short videos.

AI-generated content has become a new mainstream of public audio-visual consumption. According to Xinhua News Agency, the total number of AI-generated videos and audios in 2025 exceeded 2 billion, a year-on-year increase of more than 14 times. Surveys show that 54% of respondents often watch AI short videos, and 25.6% often watch AI micro-short dramas, reflecting strong market acceptance.