China's official internet survey counted microdrama users once

The figure or the record

On 17 January 2025, the China Internet Network Information Center (中国互联网络信息中心, CNNIC) published its 55th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development (第55次《中国互联网络发展状况统计报告》), stating that as of December 2024, 'the microdrama user base reached 662 million people, with an internet-user adoption rate of 59.7 per cent' (微短剧用户规模达6.62亿人，网民使用率为59.7%). CNNIC is the state-run body that also publishes China's overall internet-user count, which the same report puts at 1.108 billion. This record was read in the original Chinese.

What the documents establish

The 662 million figure is a measured share of a known, national survey population — China's internet users — not a modelled estimate of app installs or accounts, methodologically distinct from a mobile-data firm's panel-based count. Yet the 56th Statistical Report, covering the first half of 2025 and published 21 July 2025, does not repeat a microdrama user figure anywhere in its text: the metric appears once, in the 55th report, and is absent from the next edition. That gap establishes that CNNIC's microdrama figure is not a maintained series, unlike the internet-user total it publishes every edition.

Scope and caveats

The figure measures people who report having watched a microdrama, inside CNNIC's broader internet-user survey; it does not distinguish paying viewers from free-ad-supported viewers, nor apps from platform-embedded video, nor a single view from habitual use. It is a snapshot as of December 2024, not a moving series, and the absence of a follow-up figure means a claim that 'CNNIC put microdrama users at 662 million and rising' cannot currently be supported from CNNIC's own documents. Any comparison to a mobile-data firm's MAU count should note the different sampling method before treating the two as one trend line.

What to watch

Editorially, the point worth watching is whether CNNIC's next statistical report, expected in early 2026, reintroduces a microdrama figure, since a repeated appearance would turn a one-off snapshot into an actual series a reader could track over time.

• Does a cited CNNIC figure appear in a single report, or across multiple consecutive editions?
• Does a national user count distinguish viewers from payers, or only from non-users?
• Does a claimed trend rest on two or more comparable measurements, or one snapshot repeated in different articles?

A single well-sourced snapshot is still useful — it is close to a national census figure for this sector — but it is not evidence of a rising or falling trend until CNNIC itself publishes a second comparable count.