Kuaishou's annual report counts short-play users, not their revenue

What was announced or recorded

On 22 April 2024, Kuaishou Technology filed its Annual Report 2023 with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, stock code 01024. In the Chairman's Statement, the company reports that by the end of 2023 it had produced almost 1,000 short plays under its own 'Kuaishou Astral Short Plays' brand, including more than 300 with over 100 million views each, alongside tens of thousands more from third-party subscription producers. For the fourth quarter of 2023 alone, it states that heavy short-play viewers — those watching over 10 episodes a day — reached 94 million, up more than 50% year on year, and that daily paying users of short plays grew 'over three times' year on year.

What the documents establish

Every short-play figure named in the Chairman's Statement is a count of users, views or a growth rate, never a standalone yuan revenue figure. That matters once the audited numbers are checked: the Management Discussion and Analysis section records total 2023 revenue of RMB113.47 billion, split into online marketing services (RMB60.3 billion), live streaming (RMB39.1 billion) and 'other services' (RMB14.1 billion, up 44.7% from RMB9.8 billion). Short-play revenue has no line of its own; it sits inside 'other services' with e-commerce and games, and the report attributes that line's growth 'primarily' to e-commerce, not short plays. A reader relying on the filing alone cannot state a revenue figure for the short-play business, only the engagement metrics disclosed. Kuaishou's own investor relations index, current as retrieved on 16 September 2026, confirms this is the correct annual report to cite for the period.

Announced versus delivered

What the filing announces is scale and momentum: almost 1,000 in-house short plays, 300-plus with audiences over 100 million views, and paying-user growth the company calls more than threefold. What it does not deliver is a revenue total isolated to short dramas; growth of the catch-all 'other services' line is explicitly credited elsewhere. Marketing spend tied to the format is disclosed only as a growth rate too: sponsorship revenue for Kuaishou's own short-play brand 'surged by more than six-fold quarter-over-quarter,' a striking figure with no absolute base stated alongside it.

What to watch

Editorially: any secondary report that quotes a specific Kuaishou short-drama revenue number should be checked against this filing directly, since the audited statements here do not support one, only user and growth figures that a percentage-based headline can make sound more precise than they are.

• Does a cited figure come from an audited revenue line, or from a narrative growth rate with no stated base?
• Is 'other services' revenue growth being attributed to short plays when the filing itself credits e-commerce?
• Does a Chinese-language regulator or exchange filing get read in its original wording before a number is repeated in English?

Kuaishou's own annual report is precise about how many people watched and paid more, and equally precise, by omission, about not stating what short plays alone earned; a trade desk reading the filing should carry that gap forward rather than fill it in.