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

ReelShort Now Reaches 275 Million Phones in Southeast Asia After New Singtel and Telkomsel Deals

ReelShort just finished stitching together a Southeast Asian network in six months. With new launches on Singtel CAST in Singapore and Telkomsel in Indonesia, the vertical drama app now sells through four of the region’s biggest mobile operators, which together have more than 275 million mobile connections.

The new deals, announced Sept. 28, build on ReelShort’s partnerships with AIS in Thailand (April 2026) and Globe in the Philippines (June 2026). ReelShort’s owner, Crazy Maple Studio, says the four markets together cover close to 70% of Southeast Asia’s population.

Why telcos, not just app stores

In much of Southeast Asia, carriers sell entertainment the way cable companies once did in the U.S. Customers add a service to their phone plan or pay for it with mobile credit, and the telco handles the billing. For a pay-per-episode app like ReelShort, that removes a big hurdle: people don’t need a credit card, just a phone plan.

Here’s how the four deals add up, according to the companies:

  • Telkomsel (Indonesia): more than 150 million subscribers. Telkomsel says it’s the first digital telco in the country to partner directly with ReelShort.
  • Globe (Philippines): about 67 million subscribers.
  • AIS (Thailand): about 47 million subscribers. The ReelShort-AIS partnership has passed 8 million subscriptions.
  • Singtel CAST (Singapore): the premium hub. Singtel also owns stakes in Telkomsel, Globe and AIS, which links the whole network.

“Indonesia gives us unmatched scale, the Philippines delivers the region’s most engaged mobile users, and Thailand is Southeast Asia’s highest-ARPU mobile market,” Crazy Maple Studio founder and CEO Joey Jia said in the announcement. He called Singapore “the region’s premium digital hub.”

Globe chief marketing officer KD Dizon said short-form drama “is now a meaningful part of” Filipino entertainment habits. AR Global Media Network, ReelShort’s exclusive Southeast Asia representative, brokered all four deals.

A fast-growing market

The timing tracks the numbers. Media Partners Asia (MPA) says microdrama viewing in Thailand grew 56% year over year. MPA also expects the microdrama market outside China to grow from $2.7 billion in 2025 to $3.6 billion in 2026, and to reach $9.5 billion by 2031.

Indonesia is getting extra attention. On Sept. 1, more than 200 ReelShort titles dubbed in Indonesian launched on the streaming service Vidio through a dedicated Short Drama tab. ReelShort and Vidio also plan microdramas co-produced with Indonesian production houses. Combined with the Telkomsel deal, ReelShort now reaches Indonesian viewers through both a major streamer and the country’s largest carrier.

What it means for the charts

For now, ReelShort’s biggest hits still come from its U.S.-made English-language catalog. Its The Great and Powerful Genie topped The Hollywood Reporter‘s first Microdrama Chart in September. Dubbed and locally produced shows for Southeast Asia could change which titles break out next, and how fast. We’ll watch whether regional hits start showing up on the weekly Vertical Charts rankings. Our methodology page explains how every title is scored.

Sources

  • Julian Bartolome, “ReelShort expands mobile entertainment reach across four key SEA markets,” MARKETECH APAC, Sept. 28, 2026, marketech-apac.com
  • Gabriel Budi Sutrisno, “ReelShort expands SEA footprint through Singtel, Telkomsel, Globe and AIS,” Marketing-Interactive, Sept. 29, 2026, marketing-interactive.com
  • “ReelShort Slate to Launch on Indonesian Streaming Platform Vidio,” ScreenMDM, Aug. 26, 2026, screenmdm.com
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