Just tell us about these micro dramas and how how producers make money from this. Yeah, so they're typically just about one minute long or several minutes long and they are shot vertically. So it fits on your phone.
It's something you can just watch when you're waiting for the bus or the train. And look, there are over a billion Internet users in China. Half of them have watched these mini drama series before and a third of them are scrolling through them every day.
So it's a huge industry, 35% growth in revenue last year. And it's you know, it popped up since 2018 when those short videos started becoming very popular among young people. And it's been growing ever since.
So it's very popular. People are just watching, you know, on their commutes. How are the producers being Money is because the Ledger watched maybe the first ten episodes for free.
They're very dramatic. They always end on a cliffhanger. And by the time you get to the very juicy part, then you have to pay.
But it's very cheap. It's like a dollar for another 20 episodes or $10 for 60 episodes. You're afraid to invest time for the ten episodes, so you might just shell out the extra $1 for for another 20, which is funny because it won't even be 10 minutes if you've invested 10 minutes, you know, into ten episodes of your time.
So how do how vichy's getting involved here? Yeah, so they're getting involved because like many other industries in China, it's a very, very competitive landscape. So there are thousands of new companies that registered last year to produce these short videos.
And according to one venture investor, he's saying China produces between 5 to 8000 of these new mini series every year. That's ten times more than the tally for the rest of the world. So it's unbeatable experience there.
So these Chinese companies, they're starting to break into the Middle East and the Asian market of producing localized content in multiple languages and where they want to attract Western audiences, they usually still have a very big team of script writers, engineers based in China, where it's cheaper and to attract the Western audience, they may just partner with a local studio, hire a small production team in the US. Leverage on Hollywood resources. The big risk here is because there has been so much scrutiny over Chinese tech firms, that is one risk that a geopolitical analyst also some people are saying, is this just a one, you know, a one off fed?
But given that it's been popping up and growing steadily since 2018, we've really changed our consumption pattern now. I mean, the last time I watch a movie is several months ago. So I think this trend is likely here to stay.
