Omdia's China share and CNSA's own total do not add up neatly

The figure or the record

Omdia's 23 February 2026 release, discussed elsewhere in this ledger, states that global microdrama revenue reached $11 billion in 2025 and will grow to $14 billion by the end of 2026, of which $3 billion is forecast to be earned outside China, implying the large majority of Omdia's modelled total sits inside China. A different kind of document gives a Chinese-language figure for a narrower slice: China's own industry association, 中国网络视听节目服务协会 (the China Netcasting Services Association, CNSA), published the headline findings of its 中国微短剧行业发展白皮书（2025） (China Micro-Drama Industry Development White Paper 2025) on 11 November 2025, stating that overseas microdrama revenue reached $1.525 billion (about 10.838 billion yuan) in January to August 2025, up 194.9% year on year, with Chinese-background apps taking roughly 91% of that overseas total. Separately, China's state internet research body, CNNIC, states in its 55th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, published 17 January 2025, that micro-drama users reached 662 million people as of December 2024, a 59.7% usage rate among the country's internet users.

What the documents establish

The three documents measure three different things. Omdia's figure is a global revenue model that infers a China share by subtraction rather than stating a domestic Chinese total directly. CNSA's figure is not a domestic total either: it is specifically the overseas revenue earned by microdrama apps, most of them Chinese-owned, over an eight-month window, denominated first in US dollars with a yuan conversion given. CNNIC's figure is a user count, not a revenue figure, measuring how many Chinese internet users had watched a micro-drama, not how much money the category generated.

Scope and caveats

None of these three figures can be added to or subtracted from either of the others to check it, because each uses a different unit, period and geography: Omdia's is a global revenue estimate for a full year; CNSA's is an overseas-only revenue figure for eight months; CNNIC's is a domestic user count for one month-end. A reader who treats 'China's share' as a single settled number is combining a subtraction from a global model, a company-nationality revenue slice, and a user census that are not built to reconcile with one another.

What to watch

This is editorial: the more useful check is whether any Chinese regulator or association eventually publishes a domestic revenue total denominated in yuan, which would let Omdia's implied China share actually be tested rather than inferred.

• Does China's National Radio and Television Administration or CNSA publish a domestic microdrama revenue total?
• Does CNSA's next white paper update the 91%-Chinese-background overseas revenue share for a full year?
• Does CNNIC's next statistical report show micro-drama user growth slowing as the format matures domestically?

Most microdrama revenue may well be Chinese, but the documents opened here do not jointly prove a specific share; they measure a global model, an overseas-revenue slice and a domestic user count, and the ledger records each on its own terms rather than forcing them into one number.