China's online literary market is undergoing profound changes in the digital content industry, whose development trajectory is closely intertwined with socio-cultural needs, technological innovation and capital configurations, but content and traffic remain central drivers of the industry。
By december 2024, china had 575 million users of online literature, an increase of 5. 47 million over december 2023, or 51. 9 per cent of the total number of internet users, marking the growth of this cultural pattern to half the mainstream content consumption scenario covering internet users。
Iimedia ranking (atp) is the evaluation agency for new chinese consumer brands under the umbrella of aids counselling, which provides consumers with objective brand information and a guide to shopping consumption. Based on data research and industry interviews from 1 january 2024 to 30 april 2025, iimedia ranking (atp) recently released china net ip platform top10 2025. List based on iimeThe val big data evaluation model calculates the grant value for an integrated assessment of china's web-based ip platform from eight indicators of the four broad dimensions of the “source eco” “user and author eco” “platform impact”。
According to the list, in 2025 china ranked the top 10 on the internet ip platform: reading group, tomato novel, black rock network, seven cats, point technology, chinese online, hand in hand, iron culture, miku literature, tower literature。
Among them, the reading group (92. 83), with its strong content ecology and ip derivatives, leads the industry by combining strength; the tomato novels (83. 90), with their free reading model, strong content distribution capacity and the advantage of the short play track, have rapidly emerged as player number two; and the black rock network (83. 38), with its capacity to innovate in quality content, short ip reserves and short distribution models, has accurately seized the opportunities of traffic migration to commercialize and become the top three players。
Over the past five years, ipa has been following the development of the digital-reading industry in china, and has published, for example, a study on the development of the mobile-reading industry in china 2020, an analysis of the current status and trends in the development of the digital-cultural industry in china 2024-2025, and a survey of the state of development of the reading industry and user behaviour in china 2025。
I. Interpretation of the list
Dimension i market performance and commercial value: the ip fission releases huge commercial value
The dimensions of the list, “market performance and commercial value”, are accounted for on the basis of the two main indicators, “number of ip-mandated changes in cooperation” and “quantity of ip-modified short-draughts”。
Historically, high-quality web-based ips, which have been validated by both market slogans, tend to show explosive genes in video and short-time plays. This powerful content life and transformational force has made ip mandated volume and development efficiency core indicators of platform content capacity, market performance and commercial value。
With the dramatic growth of the short play from 2024 to 2025, the online industry, which creates dynamic energy for its continuous delivery of content, and more so the intense competition for ip authorization and adaptation development, entered a new commercialization cycle。
In terms of “the number of partnerships authorized by the ip”, the reading group, the tomato novel and the black rock network are among the top three; in terms of “the number of short-duration blasts modified by the ip”, tomato novels, crowd-pointing technologies, hands-on technology, and black rock networks are visible。
In the era of “ip for king”, the power of the head platform is becoming more pronounced. The advantages of full-industry chain development are evident in reading groups, and superips such as doro continent, jubilee, continue to release long tail values. In 2024, it made a breakthrough in the commercialization of ip, boosting copyright operations and other revenues by 33. 5 per cent to $4. 09 billion over the same period。
Tomato novels accumulate large user pools in a “free reading + recommended” mode. In 2024, there were over 500 transformations of the tomato generation. Numerous short films adapted from the tomato novels have become explosive, such as " good girl " , " old girl " and " cloudy " 。
The black rock network, with its content advantage of “punishment + precision”, has an ip mandate for the conversion of explosive funds in a variety of fields, including film, short drama, cartoons, publishing and sound. In the area of short plays alone, the black rock network has so far had over 400 mandated works, with significant advantages; short plays such as " after going away, the two of them went crazy " , " the wrong life " , etc., are reaping superhumanity on various platforms. In addition to the emotional short play, the content of the black rock network has been adapted into a variety of fine films, such as the tv show " the dream man " , the online film " the great gentleman " series (formerly ip " the magic king " )。
In addition, the short play + the electrician closed the ring, with a total of 1 billion hits of peach flowers at once and ads such as love faraway and returning the travelling home were distributed among the producers。
The technology has focused on women's emotional paths, and hundreds of short plays have been released. Its short play field is represented by life and death rescue: she lost her daughter's way of life, " misplaced tempore " , " in the light of the clouds next month " , and so on, all achieved remarkable business results。
Content ecology: scale in parallel with precision, ai enabling new path
The “content ecology” dimension is mainly measured by “number of newly contracted works per year”. In general, the number of new items signed up each year indicates that the more dynamic the platform is, the more its content is created and the more its contents are kept. In 2024, the platform's new signed works were particularly prominent in terms of short content, quality conversion rates and ai-assisted creation。
In total, the group signed 650,000 new works in 2024, with more than 42 billion new words. Thanks to a stratification system called "the great platinum-strength-young writers", the rate of transformation of the product has increased significantly, not only by hatching phenomenon-level works such as "the ring of destiny", but also by the emergence of annual influential works such as "putting me back again, huh" and "the high martial law" , which received the 35th galactic prize, "the best cyberlicter award" and initiated visual and animation adaptation。
The transformation rate of tomato novels has been double-lifted through the “tops” system, which combines six dimensions: human gas, quality, reputation, etc., and selects innovative works such as “i learned to cut the gods in psychiatric institutions”, “the end of the day” and “the end of the day”. Of these, the number of animations played by democrats exceeded 700 million, the number of people reading at the end of " end of ten days " exceeded 5 million, and over 700,000 scored 9. 9。
Strong conflict, fast-paced short-text content demand also erupted in 2024, with black rock networks accounting for more than 30 per cent of the domestic short-text market with over 60,000 short-text ip reserves。
The rate of transformation of the black rock web product is concentrated in deep cultivation in the vertical field, with the creation of a fantasy world view through the integration of folklore elements, with many new developments continuing to occupy the head of the platform. In addition, the black rock network has improved the efficiency of ip conversion through a “short-democratization” strategy, such as "don't make a dim moon " , " my daughter's girl's turn, i laugh " , which has been translated into a micro-short play that promotes short content from text to multiple forms。
With the innovation of ai technology, the ai-aided creative model has become popular and has significantly improved the efficiency of content production. Since its access to deepseek, the reading group has grown by more than 30 per cent for its “writer assistant” daily users, with the weekly usage of ai functions exceeding 50 per cent。
The chinese online "one key to produce one word of content" with the big "chinese free" model promotes 30% + growth in online and cartoon production. The launch of the "ai assistant" by the seven cats in partnership with the 100 mansion had led to an increase of 79. 8 per cent in the number of new originals in 2024。
3d user and author ecology: key to the competitiveness of the ip platform
The “user and author ecology” dimension is accounted for on the basis of the three main indicators of “number of monthly active users” (mau) “number of paid users” “number of new contracting authors per year”。
The monthly number of active users reflects the adhesion of the platform's users and market competitiveness. In june 2024 alone, tomato novels attracted a large number of users, reaching 218 million people per month, an increase of 35. 5 per cent over the same period, with their simple and fluid reading experience and rich and diverse content. In 2024, the number of monthly active users of seven cat novels exceeded 80 million, demonstrating their strong influence and market competitiveness in digital reading。
The number of fee-paying users is a direct reflection of the platform's revenues, which attracts more authors and promotes quality content creation. Based on high-quality content and fee-paying models, the reading group attracted users, with its own platform products and the average monthly fee-paying users of its own channels increasing by 4. 6 to 9. 1 million over the same period in 2024。
The annual number of new signatories reflects the creativity and appeal of the platform. With a good creative environment and supportive policies, the seven cats attracted a large number of authors and introduced three contractual models of “basket + super-basket split” and “super-share”. In 2024, the tomato novel launched more than a dozen enabling policies, including the promotion of content incubation and the development of ip ecology, including through the award of bonuses。
The platform's impact: small programs are flowing for new battlefields
Flows are also one of the core drivers of the web-based industry. The `platform impact' dimension uses two indicators of the `micro-intelligence index' `number of small programs' as an assessment dimension, reflecting the ability of the platform's users to reach, crowd in traffic and ecological extension。
In terms of the micro-trust index, the tomato novels build a cross-platform transmission link based on the byte flow advantage of the tremors. Most of its peaks are strongly related to short play marketing events, such as the one-on-a-day increase of 180 per cent in the short show, " i was a late mom in the 1980s " 。
The black rock network is the most visible in terms of the number of small programs. The small program has now become an important tool for web-based literary platforms to expand user channels, enhance user experience and create new battlegrounds for traffic competition. The small program matrix of the black rock story conference, which features short texts, is large, with more than 2,000 new shorts in the month-on-month, meeting users' reading needs in different settings。
Ii. Industry projection 2025
Efficient development, short-draughts, global access to sea and ai innovation
In 2025, the chinese internet ip market showed the following four main trends。
One is the efficiency of ip development. The content platform starts an incubation process at the time of renewal of the work and fosters a popular ip by stimulating user enthusiasm through efficient interaction and secondary creation. The rise of the short play market has led to the release of ip values in the center of the waist, and precision production has become a key factor in the upgrading of the short play. In this context, the efficiency and quality of ip video adaptation have been increased, with online literature accounting for more than 60 per cent of the annual thermal video productions。
The second is that the short play is a web-based version of the ip to transform the new wind. The “micro-short drama” of 2025 was revolutionary in comparison to the “short dramas” of the past. First, the set was more refined, from hundreds to hundreds; second, emotions and circumstances were reversed to the extreme; and lastly, production and investment costs were significantly reduced. These three points have contributed to making the micro-short play the dominant short play form in 2025. In 2027, china's short play market is projected to be over $100 billion, and with the help of a long video platform, the expansion of the industry provides an efficient transformation path for the internet ip and promotes the upgrading of the content industry。
The third is the acceleration of the internet industry. In 2025, the ai-assisted translation of online texts broke the language barrier, the entire web-based industry went out to sea, overseas paid reading, the overseas short play business, etc., contributed to the global upgrading of ip and the integration of cultural resources, while interacting with the “z generation” popular culture abroad and enhancing the resonance of the dissemination of works。
Fourth is the creation and dissemination of ai technological innovations. With the emergence of the agc model, continuous interaction with ai is an option for all online literary platforms. In 2025, ai-assisted creation, ai translation and fans worked in tandem to increase the efficiency of content production on the web, reduce the cost of multilingualism, and create a new paradigm that allows readers to participate in creative work and reap the immersion experience。
Iii. Industry observations
In 2018-2025, the transformation of chinese online literature and its rebirth
In 2018, china's online literary industry broke its platform model for almost 20 years, entering the age of traffic and opening a new cycle of triumphs。
The launch in 2018 opened mp friends' circles, and the “micro-intelligence dam” opened up online literature, as evidenced by the fact that excellent online literature began to flow through the micro-intelligence publicise, and that any commercial can quickly spread content products to micro-infidel friends through advertising fees. Since then, the old era of online literature as a novel called “court of department stores” awaiting door-to-door screening by paid users has almost come to an end, with a new era of flows of “delivering novels to the hundreds of millions of user friends”。
The new mode of traffic has added two important drivers, advertising platforms and distributors, in the systems of past online literary platforms, readers and authors. This year, black rock networks, high-profile technology, hangzhou masters, and mid-twilight clouds became innovators and practitioners of the moment. Whether the monograph creates a billion myths or has reached an alarming speed of more than millions of readers on a single day, the payment model for online literature has reached its peak of almost 15 years of development。
This change has profoundly affected the next seven years, with the emergence of new forms of content, such as free novels, ultra-short dramas, and ai animations, which can be used to test content quickly。
In august 2018, another major event that affected the way online literary enterprises lived was born. Readers, seven cat novels have introduced a free model, crushing the cost-reading model of the representative of the reading group. In november 2019, today's headline, which was placed on the platform as a free-of-charge advertising model, came on line with a free-of-charge tomato novel with its own advertising system in order to reduce the impact。
The passage of giant whales, sharks, tomato novels, dau, which quickly exceed millions, is far more than other free novel platforms and indirectly affects the listening operations of platforms such as himalayan. Fee-paying platforms are also free models of test water, such as hand-to-hand, black rock networks, book-hunters, etc., but they have to be abandoned because advertising revenues are far below the cost of obtaining traffic。
During the same period, an innovative group of companies attempted to create short play products using flow distribution models, moving ahead with tomato novels and obtaining good data models. After two years of short play market growth, the whole entertainment industry, including games, live broadcasts, video and electric operators, has been gaining ground in an attempt to capture the product of the short drama。
In 2023, the whale turned around again. In may, the tomato industry issued a free red fruit drama, and many companies had to shut down short opera operations or rely on overseas distribution to recover the cost of filming. The production and delivery chains of short plays are more sophisticated than online novels, which have resulted in a high degree of evolution of the surviving content platform and the distributor's team。
Since 2024, the online literary platform, which is still active, has continued to have two factions. The first is to seek overseas break-ups, to bring overseas traffic to apple, google applications, and mPlatforms such as eta, youtube, tiktok, which are neutral and do not advertise their own business; second type of misinforming deep-drink content (1 to 30 thousand words/text), which creates short content ecology and occupies market size. At present, however, the giant reading group and the tomato novels are also involved in short-term operations。
The continuous evolution is china's long-standing secret to the internet ip platform
The internet ip platforms have witnessed the evolution of chinese online literature from a forum rap style to an exclusive website with long novels, from the desktop era to the cellular reading age. Whether it's a million-word phantom work or a short text full of emotions, the chinese story has evolved with technological development and intergenerational changes。
From the establishment of a pay-reading business closed-up on the chinese web to the breaking of the fee-paying-reading and seven-cat system; from the outbreak of the app to the loss of an operator's reading base; from the acquisition of big literature from the totem literature to distribution models to the rise of fine and sophisticated people like technology and hand-playing; from the expression of early free personal interest to the subsequent purposeful commercial drive of the company..
Online literature, the first of the internet's “trifts”, has been accompanied by forums, stickers, microblogging, public numbers, video numbers, etc., and has travelled through pc, app, h5, small programs and fast applications, while adapting to various forms, including long, short, micro-short and audio。
For the web-based ip platform to be green, it needs to adapt to the times, evolve, and be able to provide readers with an innovative content on a continuous basis, while keeping abreast of changes in flows, product patterns and business logic。
The year 2025 is still a year of change. China's internet-based ip platform can explore new industrial boundaries and peaks only if it adheres to strengths and innovative developments。
