ShareChat Couldn’t Beat Meta. So, It Put Saas-Bahu in Your Pocket

There is a billionaire pretending to be a labourer.

A murderous mother has arrived from Kaliyug. Somebody has acquired a gold-digger girlfriend. Another unfortunate man has become both a billionaire and an unmarried father.

Welcome to the latest chapter in India’s great attempt to challenge Meta.

ShareChat was built to give Indians a social network in their own languages. Moj was launched to occupy the space TikTok left behind. QuickTV now offers Billionaire Waris Ka Mazdoor Baap, Kaliyug Ki Qaatil Maa, Meri Gold Digger Girlfriend and Billionaire Bana Kunwara Baap in episodes designed to be consumed vertically, rapidly and compulsively.

The plot has become louder because the original business remained stubbornly quiet.

Mohalla Tech, which owns ShareChat, Moj and QuickTV, crossed ₹1,000 crore in operating revenue during FY26. Revenue rose 40.5% to ₹1,016 crore from ₹723 crore a year earlier. After two sluggish years, this looks like the breakout investors had been awaiting.

The composition of that revenue tells a more interesting story.

Chatrooms contributed ₹471 crore. QuickTV and Moj+ subscriptions supplied ₹293 crore. Advertising generated ₹252 crore and declined 13%. Three-quarters of the company’s operating revenue, therefore, came from people paying for interaction or entertainment. Advertising, the engine expected to monetise ShareChat and Moj’s enormous audiences, produced only one-quarter.

India’s proposed answer to Meta has not beaten Meta at social advertising. It has started selling one-minute soap operas instead.

₹1,000 CRORE, AFTER ELEVEN YEARS

The milestone deserves recognition and context.

ShareChat emerged from a perceptive insight. Founders Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan noticed Indians exchanging jokes, greetings and entertainment in regional languages through WhatsApp and Facebook.

English was not the default language of the next hundreds of millions coming online.

ShareChat launched in 2015 with Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Marathi, later expanding into 15 Indian languages. It reached users in towns that many global platforms and advertisers still described vaguely as “Bharat”.

Then came TikTok’s ban in June 2020. ShareChat built Moj at extraordinary speed and entered the vacuum left by the Chinese short-video giant.

In 2022, it acquired Times Internet’s MX TakaTak and combined two large Indian short-video audiences.

The funding followed the excitement.

ShareChat raised $913 million during 2021, reached a valuation of $3.7 billion and then raised another $255 million in 2022 at a $5 billion valuation. Its investors have included Google, Twitter, Snap, Tiger Global, Temasek, Lightspeed and Elevation Capital.

By the company’s account, ShareChat and Moj eventually accumulated more than 300 million monthly users.

That scale created the Meta comparison. It did not create Meta economics.

Reaching ₹1,016 crore after approximately eleven years is progress. It also needs to be measured against roughly $1.3 billion raised, a peak valuation of $5 billion and several rounds of restructuring.

In early 2023, ShareChat eliminated more than 400 jobs, or about 20% of its workforce, shortly after cutting another 100-plus positions. Sachdeva acknowledged that the company had overestimated market growth during the funding boom.

The ₹1,000 crore milestone has arrived after the valuation fell, employees left and the company stopped behaving as though audience growth would eventually solve every financial problem.

WHY COULDN’T SHARECHAT BECOME INDIA’S META?

ShareChat found the audience. Meta retained the advertiser.

Regional-language engagement is real. ShareChat offers advertisers access to users across more than 15 languages, while its promotional material claims 325 million monthly active users and 280 billion video views a month.

The commercial difficulty lies in converting that reach into high-value, precisely targeted advertising at Meta’s efficiency.

Meta can follow behaviour and intent across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and a vast advertising network. It offers sophisticated measurement, automated buying tools and years of performance data.

An Indian business seeking measurable sales can reach the same regional-language consumer through Instagram Reels or Facebook without adding a separate platform to its media plan.

Meta India’s FY25 gross advertising revenue rose 29% to ₹29,392 crore. After royalties and infrastructure costs paid to the global parent, its net advertising revenue increased 19.4% to ₹2,171 crore. The Indian entity reported a profit of ₹647.5 crore.

Those figures are not directly comparable with Mohalla Tech’s consolidated accounts because Meta India operates under a licensing and revenue-sharing structure. They still demonstrate where Indian digital-advertising money is flowing.

ShareChat’s advertising revenue fell to ₹252 crore in FY26. That is the awkward verdict on the original thesis. India’s vernacular population became enormously valuable.

Meta, Google and YouTube learned to reach it too.

THE CHATROOM WAS PAYING THE BILLS

Long before QuickTV, ShareChat had already discovered that users could be easier to monetise directly than advertisers.

Its chatrooms allow people to meet through audio and video interactions, send virtual gifts and pay for features or access. The segment generated ₹471 crore in FY26, up 8.8%, and remained the company’s largest source of operating revenue. This is a meaningful business, but moderate growth indicates that it may not carry the entire company much further.

Virtual gifting also changes how ShareChat should be understood. The company is no longer merely a social feed supported by advertisements. It operates a creator-and-consumer transaction business resembling parts of livestreaming, gaming and online companionship.

QuickTV adds another direct-payment layer. The strategy is rational. If advertisers will not pay enough for the audience, ask the audience to pay.

QUICKTV ENTERS WITH A CLIFFHANGER

QuickTV launched in 2025 and produced ₹293 crore of subscription revenue in its first full financial year. It accounted for almost 29% of Mohalla Tech’s operating revenue.

That is an exceptional debut for a new product.

QuickTV says it has more than 50 million downloads, 7.3 million subscribers and over 700 series. Users spend more than 90 minutes a day on the app, according to the company. Individual series usually stretch across 50 to 100 episodes lasting roughly one or two minutes each.

The formula borrows television’s oldest devices and adapts them to the scroll. Every episode needs a revelation, humiliation, betrayal or impending wedding. The viewer does not wait until tomorrow evening to learn whether the domestic worker owns the company.

The next instalment is one thumb movement away.

The production economics help. A conventional Indian microdrama reportedly costs around ₹15 lakh to ₹20 lakh per series. Mohalla Tech has committed ₹100 crore to artificial intelligence and says AI-assisted workflows could eventually reduce production costs by as much as 70%.

Its distribution advantage may be even more important.

A standalone microdrama startup must advertise to find viewers. Mohalla Tech can place free episodes before existing ShareChat and Moj users, then direct paying viewers towards QuickTV.

The company says 75 million people now watch free microdramas monthly across ShareChat and Moj. It claims daily consumption has crossed one billion episodes and that Moj’s average time spent has nearly doubled.

If those viewers can be monetised through advertising, subscriptions and small payments, QuickTV could become more than a rescue act. It could convert ShareChat’s under-monetised audience into the distribution system for a new entertainment category.

THE ₹335-CRORE QUESTION

The growth was not free.

Mohalla Tech’s business-development expenditure increased from ₹43 crore to ₹335 crore during FY26, an almost eightfold jump. That line alone equalled one-third of operating revenue and exceeded QuickTV’s reported subscription income.

The accounts do not allow every rupee of that increase to be assigned solely to QuickTV. The timing nevertheless raises the essential question: how much did Mohalla Tech spend to generate ₹293 crore of new subscription revenue?

Microdrama platforms commonly use cheap trials, performance advertising and cliffhanger clips to pull users into paid apps. Conversion can be difficult and churn can be brutal because the product must continually supply fresh stories.

Subscription trust presents another risk. More than half of Indian microdrama viewers surveyed in a Meta-Ormax study reportedly cited automatic-renewal concerns as a reason for avoiding paid plans.

QuickTV’s terms say subscriptions may renew automatically and fees are generally non-refundable. Its app-store pages contain complaints about unexpected charges and difficulties obtaining refunds.

Such reviews do not establish how widespread those experiences are. They reveal a pressure point for an industry relying on small payments from cost-conscious users.

The next year will show whether FY26 bought QuickTV a durable subscriber base or rented one.

KUKU HAS ALREADY SPOILED THE ENDING

ShareChat cannot argue that heavy losses are unavoidable because microdramas require investment.

Kuku Technologies, which owns Kuku FM and Kuku TV, reported FY26 operating revenue of ₹1,484 crore, approximately six times its previous-year figure, and turned profitable.

Mohalla Tech possesses the larger social network and broader distribution. Kuku appears to have built the larger entertainment business with better economics.

Competition is becoming fiercer. Story TV, ReelShort and Pocket Entertainment are fighting for the same phone screen. Amazon, Zee, JioHotstar and other established media companies have entered short-format storytelling.

China demonstrates the possible prize. Microdramas there have grown into a multibillion-dollar industry. India’s combination of inexpensive mobile data, regional-language audiences and an established appetite for melodrama makes the format highly attractive.

It also makes early revenue vulnerable. When everybody can produce an estranged billionaire, a vengeful bride and an evil mother-in-law, distribution costs rise and novelty disappears.

ShareChat’s defensible asset is not the plot. It is the audience already holding the phone.

IS THE LOSS ₹672 CRORE OR ₹1,978 CRORE?

This question requires more than selecting the smaller number.

One reconstruction of Mohalla Tech’s FY26 accounts places total income at ₹1,105 crore, expenses at ₹1,777 crore and the resulting loss at ₹672 crore, an improvement from ₹796 crore in FY25.

On this basis, the company spent ₹1.75 to earn every rupee of operating revenue.

Separately, Mohalla Tech’s management has said its loss before tax widened to ₹1,978 crore from ₹1,105 crore. It attributed much of the increase to non-cash or accounting charges associated with convertible debt, foreign-exchange movements and employee stock options.

ESOP expense alone reportedly increased to ₹739 crore from ₹184 crore. Interest associated with debt securities was placed at ₹549 crore.

These are not two interchangeable descriptions of the same result.

The ₹672 crore figure is an analytical reconstruction derived from total income and selected expenses. The ₹1,978 crore figure reflects a broader loss before tax after financing, forex and compensation charges.

Non-cash does not mean imaginary. ESOPs dilute shareholders. Convertible debt must eventually be repaid, refinanced or converted. Foreign-currency liabilities can become more expensive when the rupee moves.

For understanding the operational turnaround, adjusted EBITDA is useful. The company says adjusted EBITDA loss narrowed 58% to ₹91 crore from ₹219 crore. For understanding the complete cost borne by the business and its investors, the broader statutory loss cannot be wished away.

HAS SHARECHAT FINALLY TURNED PROFITABLE?

The company says the answer is beginning to become yes.

Mohalla Tech has reported two consecutive EBITDA-positive quarters in the first half of FY27, ₹9.5 crore of EBITDA profit and four straight quarters of positive cash flow.

Management expects FY27 revenue of approximately ₹1,500 crore and EBITDA of nearly ₹25 crore. It is considering an IPO towards the end of 2027, subject to completing a full profitable year and sustaining cash generation.

These are management claims and forecasts rather than audited FY27 results. They deserve attention because the direction has clearly improved. They need to be tested against the statutory accounts when the year closes.

The company says advertising recovered 40% in the second quarter of FY27 as microdramas created more viewing inventory. This may be the most consequential claim of all.

If free microdramas restore advertising while QuickTV retains subscription revenue, Mohalla Tech will have found a dual engine. Its social audience will distribute entertainment, and entertainment will improve monetisation of the social audience.

If subscriber acquisition remains expensive and the advertising recovery fades, QuickTV will resemble a new programme commissioned to distract from an old ratings problem.

THE META DREAM IS OVER. THAT MAY HELP

ShareChat’s most useful decision may have been to stop pretending that becoming an Indian version of Meta was the only acceptable ending.

Meta possesses global advertising technology, billions of users, enormous capital and several interconnected products. Matching it in advertising was never a fair contest.

Continuing to chase the comparison would have consumed more money without improving the odds.

Mohalla Tech is now assembling a different company: regional social feeds for reach, Moj for short-form video, chatrooms for transactions and QuickTV for subscriptions and entertainment advertising.

That business is less glamorous than the original pitch. It may be more real.

The roast remains irresistible. Investors poured money into a homegrown social-media champion. Eleven years later, its fastest-growing product offers murderous mothers, secret billionaires, accidental weddings and gold-digger girlfriends in portrait mode.

Yet Indian consumer technology is full of businesses that failed after refusing to change the story.

ShareChat has at least recognised that its first script was not working. Crossing ₹1,000 crore does not prove the new one will. QuickTV has delivered the twist. FY27 must supply the ending.