AI-native apps in China hit 546M monthly users; Hongguo overtakes Doubao

On November 3, 2026, QuestMobile released its China Mobile Internet Autumn Report, covering data through September 2026. The report put monthly active mobile internet users at 1.281 billion, up 0.9% year on year, while average monthly usage time per user reached 189.8 hours in September, a 6.5% increase. It identified AI-native services, short drama content, community transactions, local decision-making and instant fulfillment as the new fronts on which major companies are reshaping their traffic matrices and competing to become the starting point of user decisions.

Follow-up coverage the same day filled in the AI-native app figures. As of September 2026, monthly active users of AI-native apps reached 546 million, an 82.1% year-on-year surge. Short drama video and short video together accounted for a 111.5% contribution to the growth of total time spent, indicating that expansion in these two tracks has been absorbing user time from online video and general news. Inside Douyin Group, Hongguo Free Short Drama reached 430 million users by the report's counting method, surpassing Doubao's 419 million to become the group's second-largest app after Douyin. The top three apps were Douyin, Hongguo Free Short Drama and Doubao, with de-duplicated total user counts of 1.029 billion, 430 million and 419 million respectively; in the same period a year earlier the top three were Douyin, Toutiao and Douyin Lite.

On engagement, Doubao averaged 72.0 monthly sessions per user and 132.5 minutes, while DeepSeek averaged 65.9 sessions and 136.7 minutes. The report noted that the two products were moving in opposite directions quarter on quarter. Public information currently remains at the stage of the report's release, with no subsequent revision or update disclosed.