ShareChat FY26: revenue tops Rs 1,000 crore, pre-tax loss Rs 1,978 crore

Mohalla Tech, the company behind the ShareChat and Moj apps and the QuickTV micro-drama service, earned revenue from operations of about Rs 1,016 crore in the financial year ended 31 March 2026 (FY26), up about 40% from Rs 723 crore a year earlier, according to its financial statements as reported this week. Its loss before tax widened to Rs 1,978 crore from about Rs 1,105 crore, which the company's chief financial officer attributed to the cost of convertible debt, foreign-exchange losses and employee stock option expenses. At the operating level the picture improved: the company's EBITDA loss narrowed to about Rs 91 crore from Rs 219 crore.

ShareChat is one of India's home-grown social media start-ups, and its parent's results show how far the business has moved from the model it started with. Advertising, once the obvious way to earn money from a free social app, is now the smallest of its three revenue lines and is shrinking. The growth has come from users paying directly: for features in ShareChat's chatrooms and for subscriptions to QuickTV, a service of short, episodic dramas made to be watched on a phone.

Micro-dramas are short serial stories, often a minute or two per episode, which viewers unlock by paying. QuickTV's first full year, at about Rs 293 crore, shows that a meaningful number of its users are willing to pay small amounts for this kind of content, a question that matters for every Indian consumer start-up that cannot rely on advertising alone.

The gap between the operating result and the headline loss is the main point for readers to understand. EBITDA leaves out interest, tax, depreciation and some non-cash items, so it shows whether the day-to-day business covers its running costs. The loss before tax includes financial costs, such as the cost of convertible debt and currency movements, and accounting charges for employee stock options. These can be large even when the core business is close to breaking even. Investors weighing the planned listing will look at both measures.

Peepals calculation: Chatrooms made up about 46% of FY26 revenue (471 ÷ 1,016), QuickTV about 29% (293 ÷ 1,016) and advertising about 25% (252 ÷ 1,016); the three add up to Rs 1,016 crore. The EBITDA loss fell by about 58% (1 − 91 ÷ 219), while the loss before tax was about 1.9 times revenue (1,978 ÷ 1,016). Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: The results give Mohalla Tech a revenue base above Rs 1,000 crore for the first time, but a wider loss before tax, which it will need to explain to investors as it works towards a listing.

Long-term: If the company reaches the full-year profitability it expects in FY27, it would strengthen the case that Indian-language consumer apps can be built on user payments rather than advertising alone.

Who is affected: ShareChat, Moj and QuickTV users; creators and micro-drama producers who work with the platforms; the company's investors and employees holding stock options; and advertisers, whose share of the company's revenue is falling.

What to watch next: Whether Mohalla Tech reports a full year of profit in FY27, and its progress towards the stock-market listing it is targeting for late 2027.

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