In China, the number of consumers using both Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok) and Kuaishou has more than doubled, according to a new report.

Within twelve months since June 2018, overlapping audiences increased from 72.7m to 158.8m, according to QuestMobile’s short video industry report. The percentage of exclusive users - users who only use one short-video app - on Douyin and Kuaishou dropped year on year from to 37.6% and 32.7% respectively.

As the short-video market in China nears saturation with more than seven out of ten mobile internet users frequenting such platforms, the two apps find themselves competing for similar audiences with more intense marketing efforts.

Widely believed to be the next goldmine for advertisers in China’s current mobile internet era, short videos boast a higher monthly active user (MAU) count of 821 million over mobile games (691 million), online music (658 million), and e-books (364 million), according to QuestMobile estimates.

As a content format, short videos are also winning the competition for user attention, as time spent on these 15-second shareable skits now clocks more than 22 hours per month, up 8.6% year on year, while time spent on other formats decreased to varying degrees.

Short videos present marketers with the opportunity to be less intrusive, so short-form ads should be seen as “a spur for creative ingenuity” and “a great way to tease and expand a campaign's core message”. (For more, read WARC’s Best Practice Paper on how to engage consumers with short-form video).

Similarly, both have become key territory for influencers. As the China Internet Trends report highlighted, recommendation-based shopping enhanced by both platforms is an important purchase driver. For instance, During Kuaishou’s e-commerce festival, the top influencer who has over 40 million followers on the platform sold US$7.2m worth of goods within three hours.

Sourced from Questmobile, Technode; additional content by WARC staff