COL Group Co Ltd (Chinese: 中文在线), formerly COL Digital Publishing Group Co Ltd, is a digital publishing company based in China.[1] It produces digital content, such as short and medium dramas, animations, films and television, and owns video app ReelShort. It also provides the animation product Spotlight and the romance novel platform Kiss for international clients.[1]
COL was founded at Tsinghua University, Beijing, in 2000. It was listed on Shenzhen Stock Exchange on 21 January 2015.[2]
On 21 November 2016, COL proposed to buy a 13.51% stake of AcFun for 250 million Chinese yuan. It would become AcFun's second largest stakeholder after the deal.[3]
In 2022, COL earned over 300 million CNY (US$41.1 million) from paid mini video series.[4]
Main article: ReelShort |
COL published the video app ReelShort in August 2022.[4] It provides drama episodes that are only several minutes long. Crazy Maple Studio, a subsidiary of COL based in California, United States, adapted some shows from scripts that were originally written in Chinese and produced for users in China.[5][6] After downloads of ReelShort from the US Apple App Store surged in November 2023, COL's stock price more than doubled in two weeks.[4]