iQIYI's SEC filing dated its short-drama push to 2024

What was announced or recorded

On 27 March 2025, iQIYI, Inc. filed its annual report on Form 20-F for fiscal year 2024 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, covering the period ended 31 December 2024. In its description of content offerings, the filing states that 'starting in 2024' the company began strategically integrating 'mini and short dramas' alongside its long-form video business. It defines mini dramas as episodes primarily one to five minutes long, optimised for vertical viewing, and short dramas as five to twenty minutes, designed for horizontal or vertical viewing, a taxonomy the filing presents as its own.

What the documents establish

The filing describes mini and short dramas as differing from long-form video in format, storytelling style and audience reach, aimed at users seeking quick entertainment breaks, and notes that 2024 product updates widened their presence inside iQIYI's app. It does not give the category a separate revenue or cost line: produced content and licensed copyrights are reported together across films, episodic series, mini and short dramas, variety shows and animation, with no figure attributable to mini or short dramas alone. The 'starting in 2024' framing is corroborated by omission elsewhere: iQIYI's prior 20-F, filed 14 March 2024 for fiscal year 2023, contains no mention of mini dramas, short dramas or micro-dramas anywhere in its text.

Announced versus delivered

'Starting in 2024' describes a strategic pivot iQIYI chose to disclose, not a result. The filing states that the categories exist and defines their format, but supplies no audience, engagement or revenue figures specific to them, so how large or profitable the initiative became is not established by this document.

What to watch

This is an editorial expectation rather than a stated commitment: the clearest sign this became a material business line, rather than a described experiment, would be a later filing that breaks mini- or short-drama activity out as its own revenue or cost line, or a risk-factor section naming competition from dedicated short-drama apps.

• Does a subsequent iQIYI filing report mini- or short-drama activity separately, rather than folding it into produced-content and licensed-copyright totals?
• Does the one-to-five-minute 'mini drama' definition in the filing match the episode lengths of the specific titles being described?
• Is a claim about iQIYI's short-drama strategy traceable to this filing's own wording, or to third-party reporting using different definitions?

The filing is best read as the point at which a listed long-form streamer formally told its investors it was entering the short-drama category, on its own defined terms, rather than as a disclosure of how large that entry had become.