Unlike social media, micro drama generates revenue from day one: ShareChat's Manohar Singh Charan
Ad-driven microdrama revenue, even after a 50% revenue share with producers, can yield five to six times the net value of subscription revenue, according to Manohar Singh Charan, Co-Founder & Chief Financial Officer, ShareChat & Moj.
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Ad-driven micro drama revenue, even after a 50% revenue share with producers, can yield five to six times the net value of subscription revenue. While subscription users pay more per head, the ad-supported audience is exponentially larger,” said Manohar Singh Charan, Co-Founder & Chief Financial Officer, ShareChat & Moj, underlining how advertising is set to become Quick TV’s biggest growth lever.
With India’s total paying subscriber base estimated at 100–150 million and over 600 million content consumers overall, Quick TV sees its future in scale. “We expect ad-supported micro drama to surpass subscription micro drama in value generation within 12–18 months,” he added.
That dual focus—balancing ad-supported and subscription-led models is what the company believes gives it an edge in the emerging micro drama space. “That’s why we play a dual game: we have ad-driven distribution via our platforms—ShareChat and Moj which capture much higher value,” said Charan.
Micro drama as the Core Growth Engine
“Micro drama is indeed the major focus area,” said Charan. “Around 70–75% of our growth investments for this financial year are going into micro drama.”
He added that ShareChat expects overall growth of around 30% in FY26, closing the year well north of ₹900 crore, compared to ₹723 crore in FY25. “On a run-rate basis, we’re already at ₹1,000 crore plus. We started at ₹725 crore at the beginning of this year, and now we’re crossing that ₹1,000 crore run rate. Hence, I’m confident the full-year number will reach 900+,” he said.
Balancing Growth and Profitability
While the company isn’t expecting consolidated EBITDA positivity in FY26, Charan said FY27 could mark the turning point. “If we chose to just focus on EBITDA profitability, we could be positive in any quarter. For the last six months, our EBITDA losses are primarily just marketing. In fact, if you remove marketing, we’ve been consistently EBITDA positive,” he said.
That marketing spend, he explained, is directed primarily toward building the micro drama business. “In terms of profitability, if you look at cash, micro drama becomes cash positive before this financial year ends. But there’s a timing difference,” he noted.
“Our internal framework is that every marketing cohort should become cash positive within 90 days—the same as our most popular 90-day subscription package,” Charan said. “Each cohort becomes profitable in that window, but since we keep investing in new cohorts for growth, the business as a whole still shows losses temporarily. The subscription business should start becoming EBITDA profitable by mid-FY27.”
A Model Built on Partnerships
“Content production isn’t our core, so we actively work with partners. We’ve tied up with multiple production houses and story development teams,” said Manohar.
Referring to a study on China’s micro drama ecosystem, he explained, “It found that 80–85% of total value is captured by the distributor, about 12% by the production and post-production houses, and 5–7% by the story creators. In subscription-driven micro dramas, most value goes to distribution platforms like Meta or YouTube, as they bring the users. So, standalone subscription apps like ours operate in the 17–20% value zone.”
This understanding, he said, is what shaped Quick TV’s integrated approach. “That’s why we play a dual game,” he repeated, “with ad-driven distribution via ShareChat and Moj, which capture much higher value.”
Execution Over Technology
“When we started Quick TV, there were already several players, but the barriers to entry were low,” Charan said. “Anyone can license content and start distributing—it’s an execution game, not a tech one. Unlike social media, where you need critical mass before monetization, micro drama generates revenue from day one.”
That early-mover advantage, he added, helped the platform climb quickly in downloads and subscriptions. “Today, we’re already among the top two in downloads and subscribers,” he said. “Our real differentiator lies in distribution and our ad engine. No other Indian player has both large-scale user distribution and sophisticated ad-targeting. That’s our moat.”
AI’s Growing Role in Production
While Quick TV’s content remains largely human-shot, AI is steadily transforming production workflows. “We collaborate on storyline selection and creative direction, backed by data on what works for which audience,” Singh said. “AI, however, plays a growing role—particularly in post-production, dubbing, and editing. AI dubbing, for instance, operates at one-tenth the manual cost.”
He added that while “full AI-generated video content isn’t production-grade yet,” the space is evolving fast. “Over time, AI could handle half of the content production workload. For now, AI dominates dubbing and post-production, while shooting remains largely manual.”
