• By Nick Patel
  • 04 Oct, 2026
  • Drama Series

DramaBox Is Now South Korea’s Most-Used Short-Drama App After Its Audience Jumped 4.5x in a Year

South Korea gave the world K-dramas. Now it has a new favorite way to watch drama on a phone, and the No. 1 app is DramaBox.

According to data from analytics firm WiseApp·Retail, reported by Aju Press on Sept. 29, DramaBox was South Korea’s most-used short-form drama app in August. It had 1.26 million monthly active users, up from 280,000 a year earlier, a jump of about 4.5 times in twelve months.

A market that tripled in a year

DramaBox isn’t growing alone. Monthly users across South Korea’s major short-drama apps reached 2.98 million in August, up from 900,000 in August 2025, an increase of about 3.3 times. That’s a remarkable shift for a format built on episodes that typically run just one to two minutes.

The race at the top is close. Here’s how August shook out, per WiseApp·Retail:

  1. DramaBox: 1.26 million (up from 280,000)
  2. DramaWave: 1.21 million (up from 490,000, about 2.5x)
  3. NetShot: 1.08 million (up from just 50,000, about 20.8x)
  4. LilShot: 330,000
  5. Beagle: 300,000
  6. Lezhin Snack: 180,000
  7. iDrama and iQIYI: 130,000 each
  8. MoboReels: 120,000
  9. GoodShot: 70,000

DramaBox holds the crown for now, but only 50,000 users separate it from DramaWave. NetShot’s twentyfold surge shows how quickly a newcomer can climb in a market this young.

Winning outside Korea, too

The Korea numbers fit a bigger pattern. When The Hollywood Reporter launched its first-ever Microdrama Chart in September, powered by Owl & Co’s Vertical Index, DramaBox was one of the two platforms that dominated it. For the week of Sept. 7–13, DramaBox placed three titles in the top 10, worth about 61 million views. Together with ReelShort, it accounted for about 90% of that week’s top-10 viewing, according to K-EnterTech Hub.

The money side is maturing as well. Earlier this year, ad-tech company The Trade Desk said it had become DramaBox’s first-ever demand-side platform (DSP) partner. The deal lets advertisers buy DramaBox inventory programmatically around the world. “Short drama has become a powerful new growth engine for the global open internet digital content market,” DramaBox head of commercial Wang Hefei said in the announcement.

DramaBox owns the top of our chart

On our own Vertical Charts rankings, DramaBox titles currently hold the top three spots: Forbidden Fling With My Bestie’s Dad at No. 1, He Broke the Heart That Saved Him at No. 2 and Deny Me, Dragon King at No. 3. If you’re new to the app, those three are a good place to start.

The question for the rest of 2026 is whether DramaBox can hold off DramaWave and fast-rising NetShot in Korea, and whether its momentum carries into the next round of global charts. We’ll be tracking it every week on the full chart. See how we score titles on our methodology page.

Sources

  • Baek Seo Hyun, “Short-form Drama App Users in South Korea Surge 3.3 Times in a Year,” Aju Press, Sept. 29, 2026, ajupress.com (WiseApp·Retail data)
  • K-EnterTech Hub, “Microdrama Viewing Concentrates on Two Platforms,” Sept. 20, 2026, kentertechhub.com
  • RAIN News, “NEW: Charting vertical dramas,” Sept. 9, 2026, rainnews.com
  • The Trade Desk, “The Trade Desk Powers Open Internet Growth with DramaBox Short Drama Partnership,” PR Newswire, April 26, 2026, prnewswire.com
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