SocialPeta & Smadex Release Mobile App White Paper: Creative Strategies Reach New Heights, Short-Drama Impressions Surpass 2 Billion

Over the past year, global mobile apps have seen rapid development, with short dramas and AI apps thriving. The industry has shifted from an exploratory phase to one of explosive growth, with both new and established players achieving remarkable success in expanding their global reach.

To support global marketers, SocialPeta continuously refined and updated its products throughout the year. Dedicated sections for short dramas and AI were introduced to provide more tailored and in-depth services, while SocialPeta also summarized key trends and emerging opportunities in global app marketing during 2024.

In collaboration with Smadex, SocialPeta released the 2024 Global Mobile Apps Marketing Trends White Paper, providing a data-driven analysis of opportunities across the global mobile app market.

The report also features insights from industry leaders at Zorka, Pushwoosh, Mobupps, Newton, and Trophée.

Key Takeaways

• Record-breaking creative volume: more than 31.9 million new creatives were launched in Q3, setting a new two-year record.
• Short-drama impressions surpassed 2 billion: leading short-drama campaigns demonstrated the scale that the category achieved through intensive advertising in 2024.
• Competition intensified in Japan and South Korea: the region recorded strong year-on-year creative growth, with particularly intense competition during the summer vacation period.
• The proportion of iOS creatives continued to rise: iOS creatives accounted for more than 40% in 2024 according to the report.

Competition among mobile app advertisers slowed in 2024, with the average number of advertisers per month dropping by around 8.9% compared with 2023.

Creative volume moved in the opposite direction. Growth was driven largely by leading shopping and short-drama apps, and the average number of monthly creatives per advertiser reached 159, representing year-on-year growth of approximately 28.7%.

The global mobile app market therefore showed a clear divergence: while the total number of advertisers declined slightly, creative production continued to expand. The increase reflected advertisers' continuing focus on content innovation and more intensive creative testing.

Among small and medium-sized advertisers, competition eased particularly during the third quarter. At its lowest point, the proportion of advertisers deploying new creatives fell to around 79.3%.

Even so, Q3 represented the annual peak in total new creative deployment. Approximately 31.9 million new creatives were released, making the quarter the highest point in the previous two years.

In 2024, Temu had the highest advertising presence among the companies analyzed and consistently remained near the top of the monthly advertising rankings.

MoboReader also increased its advertising activity after expanding into short drama. Its strategy relied on deploying mature translated drama content at high creative volume. Dianzhong Tech and New Reading were among the other companies competing aggressively in the same category.

Google LLC ranked twentieth in the report's company advertising analysis with 138 advertised products, illustrating the breadth of its product portfolio.

2024 was a period of rapid global expansion for short dramas, with both established and emerging platforms competing aggressively for audiences.

Major advertising platforms included ShortMax, DramaBox, MoboReels, Kalos TV, MiniShorts, and ReelShort. Newer platforms also entered the competitive landscape, including My Drama.

Larger technology companies joined the market as well. ByteDance, for example, launched Melolo as competition in global short-form drama continued to expand.

Even platforms backed by major companies require a large volume of attractive content to build visibility. SocialPeta therefore compiled its top short dramas of 2024 across markets including Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Korea.

In Europe and North America, many of the highest-ranking dramas were locally produced. ShortMax's The Divorced Billionaire Heiress led the ranking with more than 40,000 deduplicated creatives.

The Billionaire's Divorced Granddaughter, a drama produced specifically for the Japanese market, ranked third in its market. Southeast Asia showed a different pattern, where translated dramas were particularly prominent.

The World Treats Me Kindly ranked first in Southeast Asia and represented a localized version of a successful Chinese short drama.

One of the clearest examples of advertising scale was The Divorced Billionaire Heiress. SocialPeta's report recorded approximately 40,000 creatives and total impressions of about 2.0 billion for the drama during the analyzed period.

Beyond short dramas, the special edition of the report also provides an in-depth analysis of AIGC apps. Part 3 examines global marketing trends across categories including social, health, and finance.

Regional data provides another view of the growing intensity of app marketing. In North America, app creative volume reached 71.2 million in 2024, representing year-on-year growth of approximately 31.4%.

The number of advertisers in North America declined slightly in June before recovering to more than 75,000 by December. Creative output, however, remained strong throughout the period, with monthly deduplicated creatives peaking at more than 12 million in July.

Overall, the decline in advertiser count did not translate into weaker creative activity. Advertising innovation and placement intensity remained high, indicating continued demand for differentiated, high-quality creative content.

The complete report spans more than 80 pages and examines major global markets including North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and other regions.

Its goal is to provide mobile app companies with actionable intelligence for understanding the global non-gaming app landscape and refining their marketing and creative strategies.

The SocialPeta and Smadex white paper combines global advertising data, category-level analysis, regional trends, and case studies to provide a broader view of mobile app marketing in 2024.

For the full charts and detailed market analysis, download the 2024 Global Mobile Apps Marketing Trends White Paper.