Hongguo Surpasses Doubao to Become ByteDance's Second-Largest App

According to QuestMobile's autumn 2026 report, Hongguo Free Short Dramas reached 430 million monthly active users, surpassing Doubao to become ByteDance's second-largest application after Douyin. This shift highlights the explosive and sustained growth of the free short-drama sector in China's mobile internet market, overtaking AI applications in terms of massive user scale within the same ecosystem. In September 2026, mobile internet users in China reached 1.281 billion with users aged 46 and older exceeding 40%, while Doubao and DeepSeek dominated the AI app landscape with divergent quarter-over-quarter engagement trends.