China Literature's licensing revenue fell as short drama grew

The figure or the record

On 23 April 2026, China Literature Limited (閱文集團, HKEX: 0772), a Tencent-controlled web-fiction and IP company, published its 2025 Annual Report for the year ended 31 December 2025. The segment table records 'copyright operations' (版權運營) revenue of RMB3,191.6 million, down 20.0 per cent from RMB3,991.2 million in 2024, inside a wider 'copyright operations and other' segment that fell to 45.1 per cent of total revenue from 50.4 per cent a year earlier. The same report states the company released 'over 120' short dramas (短劇) in 2025, more than half certified by the platform as hits, with its top-performing title's gross take passing RMB80 million and reaching over 3.5 billion total views, citing analytics firm Enlightent (雲合數據).

What the documents establish

Read against the company's earlier 2025 Interim Report, published 9 September 2025 for the six months to 30 June 2025, the two filings show a licensing business that weakened, then partly recovered: first-half copyright-operations revenue fell 48.4 per cent year-on-year, more than double the 20.0 per cent full-year decline the annual report later recorded, implying a stronger second half the interim report could not show. The interim report also states China Literature had, by mid-2025, 'opened up more than 2,000' web-novel titles for short-drama adaptation and published 'a first list of 300' IP titles for producers and screenwriters to option — a measure of licensing supply the annual report itself does not repeat.

Scope and caveats

The RMB3,191.6 million copyright-operations figure covers television, film, animation, short drama and AI-generated comics together; the annual report does not break out short drama's share of that revenue, only its title count and audience-measurement figures, themselves sourced from a third-party analytics firm rather than measured by the company. Neither filing discloses what share of a short-drama licence fee, once paid, is passed to the original novelist versus retained by the platform or production company — the balance sheet shows only a small prepayment line, RMB35.0 million, advanced to 'suppliers and online authors' collectively, not split by recipient.

What to watch

Editorially, the figure to watch is whether a future filing isolates short-drama revenue from the wider copyright-operations line, and whether the 300-title licensing list converts into adaptations the company can name and report individually.

• Does a 'licensing revenue' figure specify which media formats it includes, or bundle television, film and short drama together?
• When a platform reports a title or GMV count for a new format, does it also report the matching revenue, or only one side of the pair?
• Does any document state how much of an adaptation fee reaches the original creator, or only the platform's own take?

A catalogue opened for adaptation is a supply figure, not a revenue one; this ledger keeps the two apart until a filing puts a number on the second.