The latest piece in ShareChat’s content stack has become one of its biggest growth engines. The regional social media platform launched its microdrama vertical, Quick TV, in February 2025 and has seen steady growth since then. The platform has about 60–70 million users consuming about 300 million episodes every day. “From a sheer consumption point of view, this is faster than anything we’ve seen in our 10-year journey,” says Ankush Sachdeva, cofounder & CEO, ShareChat.
ShareChat acknowledges that it has been able to grab this significant share in that short window riding on the already large user base it has on its social media platforms, ShareChat and Moj, that are also pivoting towards microdramas. Together, ShareChat and Moj have a user base of 200 million. The platform follows a subscription model, charging Rs 699 for a three-month subscription for microdramas. Sachdeva says the platform will soon have an ad-supported tier where the customer will get to sample its offerings for free.
While ShareChat did not share Quick TV’s ad revenue figure, Sachdeva says the platform is expecting to cross the Rs 1,000-crore mark in the financial year 2025–26, a close to 40% jump on a year-on-year basis riding the growth in the microdrama space. His optimism also rests on the fact that the revenue per user on the platform has grown three-times in the last three years. The average time spent on stablemates has also seen a spike after Quick TV joined the ranks.
But here’s the catch. While microdrama has helped increase the number of users on the platform, the frequency of use remains low. “Though it comes with a lot of engagement, microdrama has a low frequency use case. Imagine how many times you would want to watch it in a month versus every time you open a social media app,” Sachdeva explains.
Experts also put its high ATPU (average time per user) down to the snackable nature of its content and the scroll-heavy pattern of short video consumption on such platforms.
Growing up pangs
Microdramas constitute just about 2% of the Rs 3,600 crore interactive media industry (2025). It is projected to be the fastest growing segment with a CAGR of 50–75% between 2025 and 2030. The category is currently consolidating around players like Kuku TV, which leads the game with 37 million monthly active users and the highest ARPU, DramaBox (2.8 million), ShareChat, Tata Play among others (source: Media Partners Asia).
According to a research by Redseer Consultancy, content velocity and quality is one of the biggest pain points for consumers, and while AI has improved supply-side efficiencies, it is also the biggest bugbear on the quality side. Anshuman Misraa, cofounder, Reelies, a streaming app that offers an engaging collection of short drama web series, says many players — Blip being one — in the space have failed to sustain early momentum and have closed shop.
Monetising microdramas remains a big challenge for platforms. Hayden Scott, creative head, APAC, Virtue Asia, says most microdrama players are still in the experimentation phase. “Monetisation will be driven to a large extent by advertisements and brand integrations,” he says. “Though microdramas have found a sweet spot between social media reels and OTT content, they will still be compared to OTT platforms like Prime and Netflix. So they will have to match their quality to make an impact.”
The other big challenge is hanging on to consumers that connect to sample its content. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. To succeed in this space, you need a full-fledged studio ecosystem, and in the absence of monetisation opportunities, the possibility of heavy investments in building an entire ecosystem seems some way off.
Competition has been relentless though. According to reports, last year alone some 50 new players entered the space as many social platforms threw their hats into the ring. Zupee, for instance, started offering microdrama content after the Centre’s crackdown on the real money gaming sector last year. Deep pocketed OTTs like Amazon Prime and JioHotstar are also making efforts to tap into audience curiosity. Amazon has set foot in the arena with MX Player Fatafat while Jio is giving finishing touches to its plans.
Sachin Singh, business head of Kuku TV, says the task of scaling up demands utmost attention from players because the demand for snackable content is growing by leaps and bounds. “While the ecosystem is picking up momentum, sustained investment in the creator economy is essential to scale both volume and quality,” he says.
On the upside, ShareChat says more than 60% of its users come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and that base is not just growing in size but is increasingly relevant to advertisers as the cohort is comfortable with both e-commerce and digital payments.