2026 is proving to be the breakout moment for vertical video, according to Joey Jia, whose Crazy Maple Studio, owner of the ReelShort app, is on track to top $1 billion in revenues this year.
Crazy Maple Studio, which operates the ReelShort microdrama app, has scaled from under $100 million in revenues three years ago to $785 million last year, according to a recent Media Partners Asia report. This year, across subscriptions and advertising (with a significant subscription skew), revenues are projected to top $1.05 billion (with a projected profit of $40 million), rising to $1.7 billion in two years.
Per Joey Jia, founder and CEO, it’s been a challenging ten-year journey for the company, fraught with cash-flow fears, as it evolved from mobile gaming and serialized fiction apps to launching ReelShort in 2022.
“I did experience some dark times,” Jia told me in a candid conversation at APOS, where he was among the keynote speakers. After a batch of productions failed to catch on, “I almost gave up,” he said. “Nobody told me what was wrong with microdrama. Or if this would be a robust model. If we could make money. But I trusted my instinct. If there’s something wrong, don’t complain to other people; go back to your content and fix it. If you’re really serious about a story, and you truly believe in it, there is a market to find out. When you see a one-day return of over 100%, you know you’re doing something correct. It’s not easy. Projects fail. It’s so easy just to quit, but I’d tell the team, let’s give it one more shot.”
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