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In recent years, media usage in China has changed dramatically. There is a trend of people consuming video rather than graphics, with short videos best meeting the time fragmentation. A short video is video content with a duration of fewer than 5 minutes, which is mainly played on mobile devices. The average monthly usage time for short videos in China is 42.6 hours. The trend towards video content is expected to continue to grow in the 5G era.

 

Consequently, many platforms have established themselves in China, which relies heavily on growth in user numbers. The market leader is Bytedance with its Douyin platform. In this short overview, we will also present other interesting platforms. In terms of monetization, all platforms are about offering viewers exciting content tailored to them.

 

AI is, therefore, the main driver for improving the user experience on short video apps, with the ability to enhance visual quality, select content recommendations, and generate ideas for new content. A better user experience brings more traffic, which in turn enables mass advertising, user subscriptions, and many monetization opportunities.