900 million daily views and rising: How ShareChat and Moj is monetising microdramas

Microdramas are no longer just a new content format for ShareChat. They have become a significant revenue engine for the social media company, accounting for about 30% of its revenue as consumption on Moj and ShareChat accelerates. The company now sees 900 million microdrama episode views a day across its network and expects the format to reach 100 million users by the end of 2026 as the total addressable market expands further.

ShareChat currently reaches around 60 million monthly active users through microdramas (out of the current 100 million users industry-wide), Neha Markanda, chief business officer at ShareChat & Mojtold Fortune India. Average time spent on microdramas on its platforms has also reached about 55 minutes a day.

“There is a massive preference for micro drama as a format. And I think that signals that this is a format that is here to stay,” Markanda said.

A joint report by ShareChat and Kantar finds that microdramas have moved well beyond being a niche entertainment format. 86% of viewers are medium to heavy consumers of microdramas, with medium viewers spending 15 minutes to an hour a day and heavy viewers spending more than an hour. As many as 80% of consumers surveyed said they prefer microdrama as a format, compared to 81% preferring short videos and reels and 63% prefers long-form content.

What does this mean for ShareChat?

For ShareChat, the findings reinforce a business it has been building rapidly since launching the format last year.

The company is monetising the format primarily through advertising, while also building newer forms of brand integration around the storytelling itself. Conventional ad inventory includes 10 second and 20 second formats, but ShareChat says microdramas are also opening up opportunities for product integration, character associations and branded shows created in partnership with advertisers.

Markanda said ads running within microdrama series have recorded typical video through rates (VTR) of 80% to 85%, sometimes reaching 90%, with the company seeing a 15% to 20% incremental VTR over the past six months. “We are monetising both across regular ad inventory and multiple innovation and integration offerings for our clients,” she said.

According to the Kantar report, users showed 100% playback of ads placed within microdrama content, while brand recall stood at 84%.

The company is also working with brands to create entire microdrama intellectual properties around their briefs, rather than simply placing an advertisement alongside content. This could make branded storytelling a larger part of the business as advertisers move beyond treating microdrama as an experimental format.

The AI push

ShareChat is putting technology behind this expansion. The company has committed close to ₹100 crore towards AI, with a significant portion going towards talent and content investments for its microdrama catalogue. AI supported content currently accounts for 10% to 15% of its microdrama output, and ShareChat wants to increase that to around 30%.

Markanda said the company is already seeing comparable completion rates between AI-supported episodes and content shot on the ground. She added that AI would help improve recommendations as well as expand the volume and range of stories that can be produced.

Interestingly, AI workflows have already reduced production costs by around 40%, with the company is targeting reductions of up to 70% as its AI models expand.

The IPO-bound company expects overall business growth of between 20% and 35% this year, while it is currently growing at about 40%, Markanda said. It crossed ₹1,000 crore in operating revenue in FY26 and reported EBITDA and net profitability in the first quarter (Q1) of FY27.

Microdrama’s revenue contribution is expected to rise to between 30% and 40%, even as the company’s core business and regional creator ecosystem continue to expand. The startup expects to have more than 700 originals by the end of 2026, apart from creator-led content.

This is where the AI investments will play a big role. The company says it is already seeing returns from the investment. For instance, the cost of acquiring a microdrama user on Moj is around ₹7, and the payback would be in less than six months.

Markanda said the microdrama P&L is “pretty solid” and that the company is targeting profitability through tighter content economics, stronger monetisation and AI led cost efficiencies. The new segment on street has reached the 100 million user mark in roughly nine to ten months, she added, compared with the eight to ten years it took OTT to reach similar scale, and hence the bullish attitude of the Google-backed startup makes sense.