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Those addictive 90-second vertical dramas you can't stop tapping through? They're now a multi-billion-dollar business — and much of the dubbing that takes them global is happening out of New Delhi

If you've recently found yourself hooked to a 90-second episode of a vertical drama — the kind where a cliffhanger lands every minute and you pay a few rupees to unlock the next one — you're part of the fastest-growing category in digital entertainment. According to Deloitte projections, in-app revenue from micro-dramas is set to more than double from $3.8 billion in 2025 to $7.8 billion in 2026, while Media Partners Asia estimates the market outside China alone could touch $9.5 billion by 2030.

But here's the catch the headline numbers don't reveal: a micro-drama only makes money if the viewer feels compelled to pay for the next episode. And once a show travels beyond its original language, that hinges almost entirely on one thing — how well it has been dubbed and localized.

The Delhi connection

Enter Sukudo Studios, a New Delhi-based, TPN-certified localization company that has quietly positioned itself as the engine behind short-drama and OTT platforms expanding across borders. The studio offers end-to-end dubbing, voice-over, subtitling and localization in over 90 languages — and claims to do it at the breakneck turnaround speeds the format demands.

What sets the studio apart, industry watchers note, is its operating model. While most localization shops assemble freelancers project by project, Sukudo runs more than 500 full-time in-house professionals across every stage of the pipeline — translation, adaptation, dubbing, audio engineering, mixing, mastering and subtitling. That in-house muscle is what allows it to simultaneously dub for multiple short-drama platforms, including QuickTV, FreeReels, My Drama, KukuTV and RigiTV.

Why dubbing is the real money-maker

The micro-drama economy rewards one thing above all: scale across languages. Roughly three-fourths of app revenue comes from viewers paying per episode rather than from ads. That means every new-language version of a proven hit is essentially fresh inventory — brand-new revenue generated at a fraction of the original production cost.

And the pace is relentless. Sensor Tower data shows in-app revenue for short-drama apps grew nearly fourfold year-on-year in early 2025, approaching $700 million in a single quarter, up from $178 million.

Quality, however, is non-negotiable. Micro-dramas live or die on emotional engagement — if a dubbed line falls flat or a cultural reference feels alien, the cliffhanger misses and the viewer simply doesn't pay. Sukudo's answer is a two-track offering: fully human dubbing, sped up by automating the repetitive parts of the workflow rather than the craft itself, and a human-assisted AI dubbing option that pairs quality with competitive pricing. The studio's work is publicly visible on YouTube, spanning channels such as Troom Troom India (13.1 million subscribers) and WooHoo (6.16 million subscribers).

'The next wave of the global village'

"The internet turned the world into a global village, the entertainment boom is the next wave, and localization is what carries it across borders — that's the wave Sukudo was built for," says Harpreet Kaur , COO of Sukudo Studios.

Even the company's name reflects the pitch. "It's drawn from the Japanese word sokudo — 速度 — meaning speed, or velocity," Kaur explains. "That's what a global content boom demands: the volume and turnaround to move first in every new market, without ever losing the human craft underneath it."

India is the next battleground

The stakes are only rising closer home. Industry estimates project India's micro-drama market to hit ₹4,000 crore (about $480 million) by the end of 2026, with Southeast Asia and Latin America emerging as the next frontiers. As platforms race into these markets, the edge will belong to whoever can localize fastest — turning the dubbing partner from a back-end vendor into a strategic bet.

It's a position Sukudo Studios, founded in 2017, has spent nearly a decade building toward: the capacity to carry a story into any language, at the speed the next market demands.