Nan Yapeng of Maple Leaf Interactive: Content innovation has always been the core competitiveness of cultural expansion overseas | 2025 China-ASEAN Expo Brand Culture Expansion Overseas Exchange Conference

In the past two decades, the globalization stories of Chinese enterprises have mostly begun with products. Whether it's the small commodities from Yiwu or the electronic manufacturing in Shenzhen, the core of the narrative often lies in price, supply chain, and speed. Now, this landscape is quietly changing: What China is exporting is no longer just "substitutable products," but a whole set of experiences and identifications with cultural connotations. It is both abstract, manifested in intangible things such as culture, emotions, and story perceptions; and concrete, being touched, purchased, and remembered through the competitive craze of games, the daily narratives of short dramas, the taste symbols of new consumption, and the global layout of capital.

On September 18th, 36Kr held a themed exchange meeting titled "Breaking Boundaries and Crossing Seas: Chinese Brand Culture Enters the Global Market," focusing on the overseas expansion of culture. It brought together representative forces from multiple fields such as games, new consumption, short dramas, and capital to discuss the new paths, challenges, and opportunities for Chinese culture in the global market.

Nan Yapeng, Vice President of Maple Leaf Interactive

Nan Yapeng, Vice President of Maple Leaf Interactive, delivered a speech. The following is the transcript of the speech, edited by 36Kr:

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm very honored to be invited by 36Kr to participate in today's event on the overseas expansion of brand culture.

You may already be familiar with Chinese micro - short dramas. In the past two years, Chinese micro - short dramas have developed very rapidly. Last year, the market scale of micro - short dramas exceeded that of the Chinese film box office. This year, both the paid and free models are still advancing at a high - speed pace.

I wonder if you know about the situation of overseas short dramas? A few days ago, there was a viral short video on the Internet - "Trump Falls in Love with a Cleaner," which attracted a lot of attention. Although the content is not an actual short drama, its popularity made many people outside the short - drama industry start to notice overseas short dramas. The video mentioned that the drama earned $150 million. Although this figure is not real, we do have single dramas that have achieved tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Although there is no single drama with revenue exceeding $100 million at present, the return is already very considerable compared to the input cost. Today, I'd like to take this opportunity to share our practices and insights in the overseas short - drama market with you.

The overseas short - drama market started in August 2022. We are very honored to be the first company to introduce Chinese micro - short dramas to overseas markets in the form of an APP. When it was first launched in the North American market, the content was mainly in English, targeting users in Europe and the United States. In the early stage, we made some shooting attempts in Hollywood. However, due to the difficulty of recruiting foreign actors during the pandemic, we used European and Russian actors. Later, we found that local actors were more popular, so we gradually established our own production system in Hollywood.

So, do overseas users accept and how much do they like micro - short dramas?

From the list data, we can see that in the first quarter of this year, our app ranked first in the entertainment download list in the United States for most of the time. American users really like the form similar to Chinese micro - short dramas: each episode is 1 minute long, and each drama has 60 - 100 episodes, with a compact rhythm and exciting plots. In terms of market scale, third - party data shows that since its launch in 2022 to the first quarter of 2025, the overseas short - drama market has maintained rapid growth every quarter. In some quarters of 2024, the growth rate even exceeded 70%. It is estimated that from the second half of 2024 to 2025, the overall market will still grow at a rate of 20% - 30%. Compared with other overseas expansion fields such as games and online novels, the growth rate of short dramas is very remarkable. In terms of revenue structure, the US market accounts for more than half, thanks to its large user base and strong payment ability. In terms of download volume, Latin America and Southeast Asia have seen rapid growth. Users in these regions have a high acceptance of Chinese culture and really like the translated and dubbed versions of Chinese short dramas.

From the market revenue share chart in Q1 of this year, we can see that almost all of the top 10 micro - short - drama APPs are Chinese. For example, our ReelShort, and ByteDance, which is well - known to everyone. They have been very successful in the domestic market and are now vigorously exploring overseas markets. Looking at the situation of the overall market in Q1 of this year. This chart shows the approximate revenue proportion. Basically, the top 10 are all Chinese micro - short - drama APPs. This is ReelShort, and many of the others are Chinese companies, including ByteDance. They have been very successful in the domestic market and are now also targeting overseas markets.

It's worth noting that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the user payment penetration rate of overseas short dramas. According to our comparison of user data with Netflix, most short - drama users are also Netflix users, but only a few percent of Netflix users watch short dramas. This means that there is still huge growth potential in the overseas market in terms of users.

So, why can Chinese micro - short dramas grow rapidly in the overseas market?

First of all, it benefits from the support of the country's economic strength and the foundation laid by the early overseas expansion of e - commerce and products. In addition, this content form, which originated in China, relies on the mature experience of the domestic short - video market. The habit of vertical - screen viewing cultivated by platforms like TikTok overseas also provides a good market foundation for the overseas expansion of micro - short dramas. Another factor is the characteristics of short dramas themselves, such as high excitement and fast rhythm, which have the potential to become globally popular content. In terms of business model, there is a lack of a mini - program ecosystem overseas, so we adopted the APP model from the very beginning. This has prompted practitioners to pay more attention to user stickiness and continuous consumption, and to accurately match user preferences through algorithms. It's also worth noting that we chose to enter the European and American markets because of their strong payment ability and large user base, which can support content investment and market education costs and achieve a closed - loop business model. At the same time, the Southeast Asian market has also performed well, with a large user base and diverse monetization models. There is even a cooperation model similar to Netflix's telecom package, which helps with the local promotion of short - drama content.

Currently, the biggest bottleneck restricting the development of the overseas market is the production capacity problem. We can't just rely on translation and dubbing to export Chinese dramas. Instead, like game companies expanding overseas, we need to use local content to serve local users. Many game companies have successfully integrated local cultural elements into their products and covered the mainstream population with local stories. In the overseas expansion of short dramas, we also clearly see that the dramas produced in Hollywood are more efficient than the Chinese dramas purchased from the domestic market. American audiences prefer localized content, even though the product form originated in China.

Next, I'll briefly introduce the reasons for our company's layout in the micro - short - drama field. We initially focused on game overseas expansion. In 2017, we launched a game product with a strong story line, and in 2020, we launched an online - novel platform. These two content - based products helped us accumulate an understanding of the content preferences of European and American users, laying the foundation for the launch of ReelShort in August 2022. Currently, online novels, games, and short dramas have formed a small internal ecosystem within our company. In recent years, the country has emphasized the "new three items" for cultural overseas expansion - online novels, games, and short dramas, and the latter has become our flagship product. These three businesses have strong synergy, and high - quality IPs or stories can be monetized on multiple platforms. We are exploring the adaptation of short dramas into long - form dramas. In fact, some senior producers in Hollywood have contacted us, hoping to adapt popular short - drama stories into long - form dramas. This will be an important path for the diversified monetization of good stories. For example, two of our games have performed excellently on ReelShort and become big hits, proving that the combination of game and short - drama content has broad prospects.

Next, I'll share our content attempts in the overseas market over the past three years. Are the popular themes in China, such as domineering CEOs, sweet romances, and strong - woman themes, effective overseas? We've verified this step by step through practice. We've been continuously exploring niche themes. In 2023, we launched a werewolf drama, which became our first hit because the werewolf theme is very popular among female users in the European and American markets. Then we launched "The Double Life of a Rich Husband," a typical domineering - CEO theme drama, which was also a great success. In July 2024, we combined the popular ice - hockey sport in the United States and launched a story about an athlete and his girlfriend getting back together, which topped the iOS download list at that time, even surpassing the American streaming platform with Olympic broadcast rights.

We also adapted the same story into a Spanish - language version to reuse the content in multiple regions. In addition, we've made breakthroughs in campus themes. For example, a drama similar to the American movie "Mean Girls" is very popular among audiences. Innovative content such as forbidden love and prison themes has also helped us expand our user base, from mainly female users in the early stage to campus girls and male users. After three years of efforts, short dramas have gradually gained recognition overseas. Last year, we were selected as one of the "Most Influential Global Enterprises in 2024" by Time magazine, which reflects the mainstream media's attention to the growth prospects of the short - drama track.

We've always maintained close cooperation with domestic partners. We've continuously rewarded our partners in terms of short - drama procurement and text - IP procurement. The share amount in the first half of this year has exceeded 20 million yuan, helping high - quality Chinese original content go global.

Finally, I'll summarize several observations about the overseas market: First of all, content is the core bottleneck in the current overseas market. If you have resources in ASEAN countries such as Thailand and Indonesia, you can produce localized content and distribute it through us. Secondly, the annual output of short dramas in China is about 30,000, which is already profitable on its own, and the overseas market can bring additional revenue. Thirdly, short dramas can be deeply integrated with the game and physical industries. Last year, we cooperated with an e - commerce company and tried game implantation. Short dramas cover a large number of mainstream audiences in Europe and America and can effectively promote products to users. In the future, the combination with e - commerce and brands will be even closer.

Welcome to explore cooperation with us, expand the user base together, and promote Chinese micro - short dramas to the world.

Thank you all.