According to the latest data from Sensor Tower, the fourth quarter of 2025 (October 1 to December 31, hereafter "Q4") witnessed a robust finish for non-gaming mobile applications in the global market. ByteDance's TikTok and CapCut decisively captured the champion and runner-up positions across the overseas non-gaming revenue, download, and monthly active user (MAU) rankings, establishing themselves as the most representative global application duo for the quarter. Fueled by Western traditional peak shopping seasons like Black Friday and Christmas, cross-border e-commerce apps continued to unleash their growth potential, short-form drama entertainment apps maintained their rapid advance, and AI applications proliferated. The overall Q4 performance not only reflects the mature operational capabilities of overseas-focused apps in leveraging global seasonal traffic and consumption peaks but also clearly illustrates the dual trends of deepening content monetization and the ongoing release of value from utility-based products.
In terms of revenue performance, the short-form drama sector and AI imaging tools emerged as the two most notable winners this quarter. The short-form drama sector maintained its fervor, with the industry scale accelerating its expansion. In 2025, global in-app purchase revenue for short-form drama apps surpassed $2.8 billion, marking a staggering year-on-year increase of 116%, indicating that short-form dramas have rapidly evolved from an emerging content format into a mature business model with global scale effects. Short-drama apps occupied half of the top 20 spots in the Q4 2025 overseas non-gaming app revenue ranking. Against this industry backdrop, ReelShort and DramaBox consistently held top positions in both the Q4 overseas revenue and download charts, and secured the top two spots globally for short-form drama app revenue and downloads in 2025, continually validating the strong monetization capability of the short-drama model in overseas markets. DramaBox's global revenue surged 75% in 2025 to $530 million, with cumulative revenue since its launch reaching $850 million. The app's downloads skyrocketed by 112% year-on-year in 2025, propelling it to the number one position in the global short-form drama app download rankings for the year. Kunlun Wanwei's Dramawave delivered a particularly standout performance, with quarterly revenue growing 20% sequentially, and its full-year revenue exploding by 28 times, breaking into the top five of the ranking. Simultaneously, StardustTV also maintained robust quarterly revenue growth of nearly 49%, as major platforms concentrated on releasing holiday-themed content during the overlapping Christmas and New Year holidays, with genres like romantic love and family emotions effectively amplifying users' willingness to pay.
AI imaging tools accelerated the release of their commercial potential. MEITU became one of the most significant monetization highlights in Q4; bolstered by continuous upgrades to its AI video and photo editing capabilities, its quarterly revenue grew 48.5% sequentially, with its ranking improving significantly, further confirming the high monetization potential of AI imaging tools in overseas markets. Content communities accelerated their monetization efforts. The lifestyle community rednote continued to expand its influence in international markets, with its overseas revenue growing 24% quarter-on-quarter in Q4, successfully entering the top twenty of the revenue chart, signaling the gradual maturation of its community content and commercialization path overseas.
The download rankings for Q4 2025 saw frequent dark horse appearances, with breakouts occurring simultaneously in both AI apps and short-form dramas. The download chart vividly reflected the significant pull effect of year-end promotions and holiday entertainment demand on user acquisition, with multiple sectors experiencing volume growth concurrently in Q4. Cross-border e-commerce entered its year-end decisive phase. With the arrival of Black Friday and the Christmas shopping season, downloads for AliExpress grew approximately 12% quarter-on-quarter, demonstrating steady performance. Through concentrated promotional strategies targeting European and American markets and continuous optimization of logistics fulfillment capabilities, AliExpress successfully captured a substantial volume of cross-border consumer demand during the year-end shopping season, further consolidating its user base in overseas markets. Short-form dramas and AI apps accelerated their breakthroughs. The AI search app Seekee continued to hold a top position in the download rankings, maintaining high penetration rates in emerging markets like Latin America. Kunlun Wanwei's FreeReels emerged as the biggest dark horse in terms of downloads this quarter, with downloads surging approximately 580% sequentially, jumping to 7th place in the download rankings. Meanwhile, downloads for ShortMax increased by over 130% quarter-on-quarter, indicating that the overseas expansion of short-form dramas is evolving from being concentrated among leading platforms towards a phase of multi-platform parallel development. ByteDance's AI product portfolio saw comprehensive volume growth. During Q4, several of ByteDance's AI applications demonstrated particularly outstanding download performance in overseas markets. Among them, downloads for Dola grew approximately 98% quarter-on-quarter, rapidly expanding its overseas user coverage by leveraging its AI conversation and multi-scenario intelligent assistant capabilities; the AI learning and education app Gauth saw downloads soar by 218% quarter-on-quarter, becoming one of the apps with the most significant download growth this quarter, reflecting strong global demand for AI-assisted learning tools. Simultaneously, the content-oriented app Melolo continued its rapid growth, with quarterly downloads increasing about 44% sequentially, breaking into the upper echelons of the download chart; downloads for the AI editing tool Hypic grew approximately 60% quarter-on-quarter, demonstrating that lightweight, easy-to-use AI creation tools are continuously attracting a broader user base worldwide.
The MAU chart for Q4 2025 once again verified that system-level hardware ecosystems and high-frequency essential applications remain the most reliable engines for user scale in the global market. Xiaomi's ecosystem continued to solidify its global user base. In the Q4 MAU ranking, system-level utility applications from Xiaomi occupied nearly one-third of the spots, including Calculator, Mi Video, File Manager, and Mi Music. Leveraging sustained hardware shipments in markets like South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Russia, Xiaomi has successfully built a widely covered, extremely high-frequency mobile system tool ecosystem, showcasing the long-term stability in user scale for hardware-driven applications. User scale for cross-border e-commerce continued to reach new highs. Temu, along with SHEIN and AliExpress, firmly held top positions in the MAU ranking, with Temu's user scale performance being particularly notable. In 2025, Temu's active users continued high-speed growth across both its app and website, with its global total monthly active user base surpassing 760 million, further consolidating its advantage in traffic volume and user mindshare among global e-commerce apps. Meanwhile, AliExpress saw its MAU increase by 5.5% quarter-on-quarter in Q4, continuing to benefit from the strong operational demand for cross-border e-commerce. Office and creation tools demonstrated steady growth. WPS Office's MAU grew 2.8% quarter-on-quarter, and with the ongoing integration of AI office assistants, its competitiveness in the overseas mobile office market continues to strengthen. At the same time, utility apps like CamScanner and InShot maintained user bases exceeding 100 million during Q4, preserving stable global influence in niche scenarios such as document scanning and video creation.
In summary, three clear trends emerged for Chinese non-gaming app overseas expansion in Q4 2025. Firstly, seasonal红利 are being utilized more systematically by Chinese developers. Key consumption and holiday periods like Black Friday and Christmas are no longer just short-term user acquisition windows but have become important growth engines for simultaneously amplifying user scale and revenue performance for both cross-border e-commerce and content applications. Secondly, AI is accelerating its role as a core driver of monetization for utility applications. From intelligent assistants and image editing to content creation and office productivity enhancement, AI capabilities have significantly increased product value density and user willingness to pay, driving multiple apps to achieve dual leaps in both revenue and usage depth during Q4. Meanwhile, online entertainment and social scenarios also continued to benefit from holiday traffic红利; for instance, SUGO maintained stable user activity in overseas markets with its lightweight real-time interaction and party-style social experience, demonstrating the long-term appeal of online entertainment apps in globalized scenarios. Finally, the long-term moat built by hardware ecosystems remains solid. Smartphone manufacturers, exemplified by Xiaomi, have established high-frequency, essential usage scenarios in overseas markets through system-level utility applications, providing a sustained and stable user foundation for the overseas expansion of Chinese applications.
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