Google India: YouTube Shorts and microdrama platforms can coexist

With various microdrama platforms, serving short-form storytelling, booming in India, Manish Dhamankar, Google India's head of media and entertainment, said that he does not see a competition to YouTube Shorts viewership as there is enough audience for everyone to "coexist".

- ROSHNI SHEKHAR

YouTube Shorts, with a reach of around 650 million users in India, and microdrama platforms are together driving a broader ecosystem for such content. Sixty nine per cent of Indians are increasingly seeking relaxing content across multiple platforms in the evening, Dhamankar said.

He said India's media and entertainment industry is highly fragmented, with users using about 6.5 streaming platforms on average for content consumption. This extends to microdramas, where 63 per cent of viewers use two to three apps and 17 per cent use more than five apps, according to Google and Qualtrix Survey 2025.