(Yicai) Oct. 30 -- Hongguo, a short drama platform under ByteDance, has climbed to fourth in China by time spent per user, boosted by the soaring popularity of the new entertainment form in the country, while the vice president of the Chinese internet giant's short-video arm Douyin doubled down on content quality at the core amid growing online concerns.

Hongguo accounted for 5 percent of the time Chinese users spend using apps in July, ranking behind only TikTok's sister app Douyin at 19.4 percent, Tencent Holdings' super app WeChat at 18.8 percent, and Douyin Express Edition at 6.3 percent, according to the latest data from QuestMobile. In addition, its daily active users more than doubled to 168 million in the same month from a year ago, exceeding the combined total of video platforms Tencent Video, iQiyi, Youku, and Mango TV.

The rapid growth of the short drama market has also attracted more entrants. Monthly active users of Lvpaopao, a new short drama mini-program housed within WeChat, reached almost 90 million in the first week of this month, up 44 percent from the first week of September and compared with 143 million for the whole of August, QuestMobile data showed.

Douyin VP Li Liang said on Weibo yesterday that there is no essential difference between short dramas and traditional films and television series, responding to online concerns after Hongguo became the fourth-largest app in China.

As technology develops, artificial intelligence is expected to open up new innovative space in short drama production, especially in historical and science fiction genres, where it can create scenes at a lower cost that are difficult to achieve with traditional production methods, Li stressed. The creativity level will likely continue to improve and approach the production level of Hollywood blockbusters, Li said.

Editor: Martin Kadiev