Back in 2015 when the only social media platforms in India were the global players, Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan had identified the need for a player that would cater to the huge population comfortable with conversing in their native languages online. This need gave birth to ShareChat, which currently boasts over 18 crore monthly active users, a number that is steadily growing. In 2020, when the Indian government banned popular short-video platform TikTok, ShareChat once again identified the opportunity and launched its short-video platform Moj. In February this year, ShareChat announced a strategic merger with TakaTak, a move aimed at creating the largest short video platform for Indians. At the time of the merger, a release said the combined entity will have 10 crore creators, over 30 crore Monthly Active Users (MAU), and nearly 25K crore monthly video views.
With more and more of India coming online, and the next wave of consumers expected to come in from smaller cities and rural areas, ShareChat aims to become the ‘torchbearer for Bharat’.
We recently spoke to Ajit Varghese, Chief Commercial Officer, ShareChat and Moj about the platforms' journey so far, the advertising solutions its giving to brands and its strategies to woo more creators as well as users onto its platform for its next phase of growth.
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