AI short dramas drive stock price increases for multiple listed companies; several companies warn of commercialization realization risks

AI short dramas are becoming a hot concept in the capital market. Since October, reporters have noted that a number of listed companies have seen their share prices rise and have issued announcements of abnormal fluctuations in stock trading, all involving short drama businesses.

But behind AI short dramas reshaping listed companies' valuations, several related companies have successively disclosed that their short drama businesses have not yet generated revenue and have limited contribution to company performance. On one hand, the AI short drama concept is driving share prices ahead of fundamentals; on the other, the industry's hit rate is declining and it is becoming harder for practitioners to make money. The commercial imagination of the AI short drama track is caught between ice and fire.

Angel investor and senior AI expert Guo Tao analyzed to reporters that the AI short drama track is currently showing a divergent pattern: matchmaking and distribution service providers are seeing improved profitability, while profits at the production end continue to be squeezed. This contradiction is essentially the result of the restructuring of value distribution across the industry chain. From stock price anomalies to revenue realization, the true quality of listed companies' AI short drama businesses still needs to stand the test of time.

The concepts of AI short dramas and AI comic dramas have recently driven up the share prices of several listed companies. A review by reporters found that entering October, a number of stocks, including Decai Co., Ltd. (605287.SH), Ciwen Media (002343.SZ), Nanwei Software (603636.SH), H&R Century (000892.SZ), and Duiba (01753.HK), hit their daily limit-up, and the announcements of abnormal fluctuations in stock trading subsequently issued by several companies all mentioned the short drama businesses they are developing. AI short dramas are becoming one of the valuation variables for listed companies.

Specifically, on October 22, Duiba's share price closed at HK$1.11 per share. Data from East Money showed that the stock had risen 56.34% over three days and 100% over 20 days. In a voluntary announcement released on October 14, Duiba stated that it expects the group's AI short drama business to record net profit for three consecutive months in July, August, and September 2026.

Moreover, several listed companies' AI short drama businesses have not yet generated scale revenue but have already caused stock price anomalies. On October 12, Decai Co., Ltd. issued an announcement of abnormal fluctuations in stock trading; the company's share price rose 20% over two consecutive trading days. The announcement mentioned that there were reports that a controlled company of the company was involved in concepts related to comic drama production, but that this business is still in the development stage, has a small revenue scale, and is still loss-making, and has not had a material impact on the company's operating performance. As of press time, Decai Co., Ltd.'s share price had still risen 19.97% over 20 days.

In addition, a statement that "the company expects to produce 300 AI short dramas per year and generate scale revenue in 2027" brought Nanwei Software a cumulative increase of 21.64% over three trading days from October 16 to October 21. The company issued consecutive announcements of abnormal fluctuations in stock trading, stating that the annual production capacity and scale revenue are only preliminary estimates, not accurate forecasts based on the existing team and production capacity, and that there is insufficient support for implementation. The AI short dramas the company has completed have not yet been launched on any platform, sales channels have not yet been opened, and no revenue has been generated so far. On October 21, the Shanghai Stock Exchange issued a regulatory warning to Nanwei Software and relevant responsible persons, pointing out that the company's previous information releases involving businesses such as AI short dramas and intelligent computing centers were inaccurate and incomplete, and that risk warnings were insufficient. On October 22, Nanwei Software's share price fell 10.02%.

The quality of each company's short drama business varies, but the short drama track's leverage on the capital market is becoming apparent. In addition to traditional content companies, since the beginning of this year, Yongji Co., Ltd. (603058.SH), Yaowang Technology (002291.SZ), and others have also successively entered the AI short drama track, treating AI short dramas as a strategic business.

In addition to Duiba, which has forecast profitability, China Literature (00772.HK) saw revenue from short dramas and AI comic dramas exceed 430 million yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 2.3 times, while Chinese Online (300364.SZ) reported revenue of 411 million yuan from short dramas and IP derivative businesses in the same period, a year-on-year increase of 108.72%. Meanwhile, H&R Century, Ciwen Media, and others are still at a stage where their short drama businesses are small in scale and have not yet formed a scale effect. H&R Century previously disclosed that in the first half of 2026, revenue from the company's AI short drama business accounted for less than 1% of the company's unaudited total revenue for the first half of 2026.

For listed companies, laying out AI short dramas does not necessarily mean future revenue expectations. Guo Tao analyzed to reporters that in the current AI short drama industry chain, pricing power is concentrated in the segments that control traffic distribution entry points, high-quality IP reserves, and the AI production computing power foundation. Platform parties control traffic bidding rules and the revenue-sharing settlement system and are the core dominant party in revenue distribution; high-quality online literature IP parties obtain stable shares relying on scarce story copyrights; the profitability of computing power and AI tool service providers is disturbed by industry price wars; and ordinary production teams operating on a project basis have revenue and profits highly dependent on the data performance of a single short drama, have weak bargaining power, face risks such as computing power, traffic investment, and script development, and have highly volatile profits. This also means that although more and more listed companies are labeled with AI short dramas, whether they can find their own sustainable monetization value in the industry chain is the real test for each company.

The industry's 80/20 effect will continue to amplify

A report titled "2026 First Half Domestic AI Drama and Comic Drama Data Report" released by industry research institution DataEye shows that in the first half of this year, the number of domestic AI short drama users exceeded 600 million, and the full-year market size is expected to exceed 40 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 138%. At the same time, AI short drama users' willingness to pay is at a high level. A survey of 1,000 respondents in the "2026 China AI Short Drama Industry Development and Audience Insight Report" shows that the proportion of paying users of AI short dramas is 51.8%.

Users and commercial space have grown, but supply is expanding even faster. In the first half of the year, the number of new AI short dramas and comic dramas on Douyin alone reached about 221,900, but only 1,055 had over 100 million views, a rate of 0.47%. Yicai previously reported that using 50 million views as the break-even line, more than 90% of AI short dramas are in a loss-making state.

The short drama track faces increasingly fierce competition for user attention. An AI short drama industry practitioner said bluntly that the domestic short drama industry is currently extremely dependent on traffic investment and at the same time needs to continuously seize market share with the speed of new product launches. Hit replication and homogenization trends are obvious, and profits are becoming thinner and thinner.

"The 80/20 effect in the AI short drama industry will continue to amplify," Guo Tao analyzed. On the supply side, the dividend from AI greatly lowering the threshold for short drama production is being swallowed up by the rapid expansion of content supply, and traffic bidding prices are constantly rising. This is also why service providers such as Duiba, which focus on short drama advertising matchmaking and paid monetization link operations, are more likely to realize phased profits. For ordinary production teams, how to diversify the risk of failure of a single work, find more value links in the industry chain, and avoid having revenue highly tied to the playback conversion of a single short drama is becoming a severe test.

In addition, Guo Tao said that at this stage, capital's pricing of AI short drama targets is more anchored to the track's long-term space rather than current performance realization. The successful commercialization path of overseas AI short dramas has verified the monetization potential of short drama content going overseas, and many companies' production capacity plans are regarded as signals of positioning in the track. But in long-term competition, whether companies can connect high-quality IP reserves, self-developed AI production pipelines, and domestic and overseas distribution channels to form a commercial closed loop is also pushing AI short drama players into competition within the ecosystem.