Revenue surged by 230%! China Literature's semi-annual report reveals that short dramas and AI-generated manhua dramas are the biggest highlights.

The image is sourced from the official announcement of China Literature Limited.

On August 11, China Literature Limited, a leading domestic IP enterprise, released its performance announcement for the first half of this year. Its total revenue reached 3.53 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 10.7%. In particular, the IP operation business, which China Literature excels in, delivered a remarkable performance, with its overall revenue surging 41.9% year on year. Short dramas and AI manhua dramas, the two new tracks, have become the core growth drivers.

After actively deploying and deeply applying AI technologies, the aforementioned businesses have seen explosive growth. The relevant revenue in the first half of the year exceeded 430 million yuan, with a year-on-year increase of as high as 230%. Its hit creation capability is particularly outstanding: the hit rate of short dramas is four times the market average; 46 AI manhua drama works have recorded over 100 million views, and the rate of works with over one million views is five times the industry average.

Meanwhile, the IP derivative business maintained its strong momentum, with its GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume) hitting 780 million yuan in the first half of the year, up more than 60% year on year, demonstrating that the comprehensive competitiveness of China Literature in content monetization and brand operation keeps improving.

However, affected by the supplementary payment of corporate income tax and late fees by its subsidiary, the group's profit in the reporting period dropped sharply to 135 million yuan, down 84.1% year on year.

AI Accelerates the Globalization of Online Novel IPs

In the first half of 2026, China Literature launched the Buddy series of vertical AI agents for cultural and creative industries, and upgraded three products including the writer assistant NovelBuddy, manhua drama assistant DramaBuddy, and copyright assistant IPBuddy, forming an integrated AI tool matrix covering content creation, IP adaptation and copyright development to improve the quality and efficiency of the IP ecosystem.

The in-depth application of AI has further accelerated China Literature's global layout. As of the end of the first half of the year, the cumulative number of AI-translated works on the WebNovel platform has exceeded 30,000, contributing 40% of the platform's novel revenue in the first half of this year. At the same time, AI also helped China Literature's revenue from works in minor languages increase by 160% year on year, effectively enabling Chinese stories to reach global multilingual users faster.

As a leading IP group, China Literature boasts remarkable influence. 8 out of the top 10 most-viewed well-known animations on Yunhe Data's full-platform viewership ranking list are adapted from China Literature's IPs. Among the top 10 long-form dramas in terms of cumulative effective views in the first half of the year, four works including *Bai Hua Sha*, *Jia Ye* and *Qiao Chu* are adapted from China Literature's IPs.

Meanwhile, new-generation writers are rising rapidly. In the first half of the year, China Literature attracted 240,000 new writers to settle in, generating more than 460,000 novels with a total of over 30 billion newly added words, ensuring sufficient supply at the source of IPs. Top platinum writers such as Ai Qian Shui De Wu Zei and Mai Bao Xiao Lang Jun have released new books intensively, and new works including *Jian Zhu Da Huang* and *Lin Sheng* attracted more than 200,000 users to read on their launch day, refreshing the platform's premiere record.

Online Business Revenue Slightly Declines with Active Adjustment of Content Structure

In the first half of this year, the total revenue of China Literature's online business reached 1.84 billion yuan, down 7.3% year on year, accounting for 52.1% of the total revenue. From the perspective of segmented channels, the self-operated platform, Tencent channels and third-party platforms all declined to varying degrees, which is mainly caused by the group's active adjustment of content strategies and optimization of resource allocation.

There are two reasons for the decline: first, among the self-operated products in the WeChat ecosystem, the proportion of free reading content with low profit efficiency has increased; second, the group is shifting the focus of content distribution from traditional online reading to emerging tracks such as short dramas and AI manhua dramas, which has affected the original monetization efficiency in the short term.

Overall, the revenue structure adjustment of the online business is the result of China Literature's active adaptation to market changes and increased investment in new content tracks. Despite the short-term revenue pressure, the explosive growth of new businesses such as short dramas and AI manhua dramas has brought new growth momentum.

Hou Xiaonan, CEO and President of China Literature, said: "At present, the continuous growth of users' fragmented content consumption and the disruptive reshaping of the entire industry ecosystem by AI technology have become two major structural changes that cannot be ignored in the cultural and entertainment industry. In response to this trend, we have firmly implemented strategic layouts in new business forms such as short dramas, AI manhua dramas and IP derivatives on the basis of consolidating the advantages of existing businesses, and have made positive progress.

In the first half of the year, the revenue of China Literature's short drama and AI manhua drama business exceeded 430 million yuan, more than tripling that of the same period last year. The hit rate of short dramas is 4 times the market average; 46 AI manhua dramas have recorded over 100 million views, and 367 works have recorded over 10 million views.

China Literature has launched the "Qidian Theater" and "ToonScroll" platforms at home and abroad respectively. At the same time, the GMV of its IP derivative business reached 780 million yuan, up more than 60% year on year. In terms of online business, new-generation writers are rising rapidly, and high-potential excellent works keep emerging. Two works attracted more than 200,000 users to read on their launch day, refreshing the platform's premiere record. Recently, China Literature has also launched the Buddy series of vertical AI agents for cultural and creative industries, enabling deep AI empowerment for the full chain of content creation. In the future, driven by the "IP+AI" engine, China Literature is promoting the high-quality transformation of content from text to visual form, and opening the next golden decade of IP value creation.

Source of the article: Chao News