Human eyes tend to see horizontally rather than vertically, and, hence, photograph copies, cinema-hall screens and television sets have traditionally been designed in a horizontal format for ages for a better viewing experience. However, the invention of smart mobile phone devices in 1992, having vertical or portrait orientations of small screens, gradually changed the viewing habits of people. Vertical screens of smartphones are considered more user-friendly. Admittedly, the vertical screen allows a user to operate the device with just one hand and is now considered an ideal solution for presenting content and offering functionalities. Vertical viewing on mobile handset screens gained immense traction amongst the users worldwide over the years; hence, entertainment content providers gradually started curating niche, dedicated and specialised entertainment content precisely designed for viewing on mobile phone screens in a vertical format.
Thus, the ‘birth of vertical TV entertainment’ or micro-dramas phenomenon originated in China around the late 2010s and accelerated during the Covid pandemic. It set the trend in the global entertainment industry as the rise of vertical entertainment is a response to the dominance of mobile devices for content consumption, shorter modern attention spans and the convenience of bite-sized, high-impact narratives that fit seamlessly into social media feeds. On the small screen, the world narrows to a vertical frame. The micro-drama entertainment format exploded in popularity in China, with dedicated apps like ReelShort and DramaBox leading a multi-billion-dollar industry.
In India, the first vertical video for mass consumption was revolutionary, being shot in a vertical format, pioneering mobile cinema and showcasing Nokia's NSeries phones as platforms for high-quality content in 2007. It was a ‘Pray for Me Brother’ anti-poverty song and music video by veteran music composer A.R. Rahman to raise awareness for the UN Millennium Goals. India’s well-known research firm, Ormax Media, states that India's online audience universe, defined as those who have watched digital videos at least once in the last month, is now at 601.2 million people. India's online audience now stands at 41 per cent of the country's population. Micro-dramas or vertical entertainment shows have rapidly established a meaningful footprint, amassing 73.2 million viewers in less than a year of existence in the Indian market. This number has increased significantly, closer to about 150 million users in India today.
Vertical shows’ audiences are largely in rural India. It is a rapidly growing market, as India has the second-largest smartphone user base globally, with estimates of about 690 million users in 2025.
Rapid growth
India's micro-drama market, featuring vertical shows, is, hence, a rapidly growing sector estimated at $500 million market size now, with projections aiming for $7 billion within five years, driven by strong demand from Tier II and III cities and untapped rural audiences seeking fast, vernacular content on their smartphones. This boom follows the massive success seen in China, with significant investment and brand interest indicating its shift from a niche to a major digital entertainment force. This sector witnessed significant investment in India, with $44 million raised in 2025 by micro-drama platforms.
Micro-dramas in India are growing at 40–50 per cent year on year, outpacing influencer-led short videos due to deeper engagement and retention. By 2026, 600-650 million Indians are expected to consume short-form video, with the category projected to become an $8-12 billion market by 2030.
The reason India’s micro-drama marketplace has suddenly become crowded is simple: Indian consumers were already deeply engaged with short-form video formats popularised in China, Korea and the West. Popular Apps such as DramaBox, ReelShort, ShortMax, NetShort, and FlickReels offered a surplus of binge-worthy entertainment content. The beginnings of the Indian micro-drama have been predictable and largely risk-free – most shows are adapted from the Chinese micro-dramas with a few tweaks made to the script.
“Vertical entertainment is indeed an unstoppable force, because it perfectly aligns with Indian behavioural reality: a smartphone-centric, time-starved audience that wants instant emotional gratification in its own language,” says Mitesh Chitalia, an eminent director of the Indian television industry. It is the future of mobile-native storytelling in India. “A typical format of vertical shows involves micro-episodes, often 30 seconds to three minutes long, designed to be intensely hook-driven. Each episode ends on a high-stakes cliff-hanger to encourage immediate, continuous viewing. A 90-minute-long episode is shot in a vertical format and presented in multiple episodes, so that audiences don’t have to invest a longer time to view,” says Romesh Kalra, a known name in the Indian entertainment industry.
In the next 3-5 years, regional language vertical dramas in India will gain phenomenal popularity. Production houses and studios that start creating original stories now, especially in regional languages, will lead the anticipated change in the vertical series entertainment industry going forward. Such vertical formats provide instant emotional gratification. “Vertical entertainment viewing is purely about the ‘path of least resistance’,” says producer Raj Saluja. “We are a mobile-first nation, and holding a phone vertically is the natural state for 90 per cent of the users. Unlike the long-form content we watch on traditional OTT, these vertical dramas are engineered for immediate gratification. They fit perfectly into the micro-breaks of our daily lives – commuting, waiting in line or just before bed. It’s no longer about ‘watching a show’; it’s about snacking on content.”
A vertical series is made purely for mobile viewing – fast, tight, emotion-first storytelling, where each episode is 20 seconds to two minutes, informs Gaurav Kauushal, producer, Makshika Films. Unlike OTT shows that run 25-50 minutes with cinematic pacing, vertical content relies on quick hooks, close-up performances, music-driven emotions and rapid episode drops. The format is simple: grab attention in the first three seconds, deliver a micro-conflict and keep the viewer scrolling to the next episode. It’s not a shorter OTT show – it’s a completely different language of storytelling built for the scroll culture.
According to Kauushal, the future of vertical entertainment in India is bright and bullish. The vertical entertainment industry is just getting started, and its growth curve is massive. With India becoming a mobile-first country, vertical fiction will soon stand as its own mainstream category – complete with dedicated apps, branded story universes and star creators born purely out of short-form drama. Brands will start funding entire vertical shows the way they once funded TV content, while AI will cut production time and costs, allowing faster, high-volume storytelling. “OTT platforms and broadcasters will also use vertical spin-offs to promote their big shows,” adds Kauushal. “In simple words, vertical content is not the future – it’s the new television for young India, and the next three years will see explosive scale, structured writers’ rooms, stronger monetisation and bankable IPs built in this format”.
Thrillers gain traction
The Indian vertical series audience overwhelmingly demands genres that deliver immediate emotional impact and quick-fire twists, primarily romance or romantic comedies and intense thriller, suspense or crime series, alongside relatable regional stories. The audience profile is dominated by a mobile-first Gen Z and young millennial demographic (18-34). Crucially, a huge growth segment comes from the country's rural belt. The audiences in the hinterlands of India seek vernacular, hyper-relatable content consumed in short bursts during their busy, on-the-go lifestyles. They are drawn to content that is fast, high-impact and instantly gratifying.
“Indian vertical shows started following Korean formats initially – showing across all genres – and gained immense popularity earlier,” remarks Dhiraj Mishra, producer, Lalmani Films. “However, today, thrillers have gained maximum traction amongst Indian audiences. Unfortunately, the limited budgets of Indian vertical drama shows are indeed a major challenge for the producers today. Producers cannot afford outdoor shoots of Indian vertical shows today, considering the budgetary constraints.”
Genres that work best in the vertical space are romance, thrillers, revenge dramas, family conflicts, mystery and light supernatural stories, adds Kundan Singh, producer, CCTV productions. Anything with strong emotions, suspense and twists tends to connect well with the audience. Viewers enjoy stories that feel intense and engaging but move quickly. The audience is largely young and mobile-first, and they look for content that’s entertaining, easy to follow and binge-worthy in short bursts.
Producer Aashu Dhaliwal feels that romance, family drama, thrillers and emotional stories work best in India. The core audience of vertical shows is 18-35 years, largely from Tier II and III cities. It’s a mobile-savvy, aspirational audience that prefers high-emotion narratives they can consume in short breaks. Vertical dramas work because they fit perfectly into today’s mobile-first lifestyle. Audiences want quick, engaging stories they can watch anytime without committing long hours. Affordable data and smartphones have made this format accessible, and emotionally driven storytelling makes it easy for viewers to stay hooked.
At present, stories based on hidden identities are in high demand, contends producer Rabindra Chaubey. Narratives, where a wealthy or powerful individual lives a simple life, is mistreated and later shocks everyone with a dramatic revelation, are especially popular. Love stories, family drama and comedy are also widely consumed. “There are several vertical content platforms in India, each with its own audience base. However, the primary audience for vertical micro-dramas comes from Tier II and III cities, mainly within the 20-60 age group. This audience prefers emotionally driven, aspirational and relatable stories,” he adds.
The rapid growth of vertical entertainment production in India has also led to formulaic plots as creators struggle to build emotionally resonant stories, with strong character arcs in tight formats. Delivering a compelling narrative hook every 60-90 seconds is crucial, demanding innovation in pacing without losing plot integrity. Crafting high-quality visuals and balancing fast-paced storytelling with meaningful character development and emotional depth remains difficult for the entertainment content creator in India. Also, crafting high-quality visuals for micro-dramas within the vertical 9:16 frame requires specific skills that are distinct from traditional filmmaking in India.
Major challenges
India's booming micro-drama industry, however, faces major challenges, primarily content fatigue from repetitive plots, slow content velocity and also uneven production quality. “I think vertical dramas will only last for about a year and then they'll fade away, because people have started churning out content just to make money,” affirms Priyanka Bansal, a seasoned and senior creative director, commenting on the growth prospects of vertical series productions in India. “If they don't focus on quality, micro-dramas will have a lifespan of hardly a year. Production houses need to work on crafting stories that are not only fast-paced but also logical and relatable to today's audience. Today's audience is sophisticated and discerning and can't be fed just anything.”
India’s vertical micro-drama ecosystem has scaled rapidly, attracting millions of daily viewers and driving high-volume production. But as the format grows, the storytelling must evolve. Much of today’s content leans heavily on repetitive tropes – hidden wealth, exaggerated revenge and humiliation-driven drama. While these deliver quick engagement, overuse risks audience fatigue and limits the format’s creative potential.
However, the vertical entertainment industry is just getting started in India, and its growth curve is massive. In simple words, vertical content is not the future – it’s the new television for young India – and the next three years will see explosive scale, structured writers’ rooms, stronger monetisation and bankable IPs built in this format. The vertical entertainment industry in India has strong growth potential. Its future looks promising, especially if platforms start investing more in original Indian content with better budgets, along with adaptations of international shows. With improved production quality and a stronger focus on originality, vertical entertainment can become a significant part of India’s digital content ecosystem.
The constrained budgets of vertical shows are one of the biggest challenges faced by producers in India. Platforms often provide limited budgets, which makes it difficult to adapt foreign content, especially Chinese, Korean, and American shows that were originally produced with much higher production values. Maintaining acceptable quality within such constraints is challenging. In many cases, producers end up facing losses because they cannot afford to compromise on the final product.
Shallow replicas
One possible way to address this issue is for platforms to commission multiple series – at least four-five – from trusted producers, so that costs can be balanced and losses minimised. Moreover, most Indian vertical shows today are shallow replicas of global formats. Watch a few vertical shows produced in India, and the pattern is obvious: different faces, same soulless storytelling.
What is missing is Indian emotion, innocence, humour and cultural rhythm. Instead of developing a uniquely Indian vertical grammar, India's vertical shows production industry is gradually becoming a low-cost imitation of China’s micro-drama model.
An even bigger concern is the growing dependence on sexualised content. Chasing shock value content over substance is quietly damaging the ecosystem in the Indian microdrama industry. It creates short-term spikes, not long-term audiences, unfortunately.
Producing vertical dramas is not an easy task, states Kaushik Izardar, producer, Kaans Production & Entertainment Studio. “We are still figuring out the best business model to generate profits. Also, we cannot narrate the same stories again and again to the Indian audience. Moreover, depicting an interesting plot or a story in a short span of one or two minutes is certainly a challenging task.”
Producer Anil Jain thinks that makers of Indian vertical shows are forced to design stories that shock every 30-60 seconds, often at the cost of depth. Producers are expected to shoot an entire vertical series of 45 episodes, two minutes each, in just three days. That means a daily output of 30 minutes of finished footage. “That’s not just insane; it’s impractical, inhuman and creatively suicidal. And the vertical shows’ budgets are tight & constrained. An average Indian vertical show – all 45 episodes of it – receives just Rs10-15 lakh. If the producer manages to complete the shoot in three days, he may walk away with a profit of only Rs1-2 lakh. If he doesn’t, he loses money. Isn’t it cruel? Isn’t it too much to ask in the name of content? Most vertical shows are created in a breathless, frantic rush, shot for 10, 12, even 16 hours a day! We stretch ourselves in the name of teamwork," he adds.
The next phase of growth in the Indian micro-drama industry certainly lies in authentic, high-emotion stories rooted in real-life modern relationships, ambition, family conflicts, workplace struggles and everyday heroism. Vertical storytelling thrives on intimacy, and audiences are ready for narratives that feel relatable, fresh and emotionally true. The industry is expanding. The audience is maturing. Experts believe that it’s time for storytelling to grow up, too, before it is too late, as Indian millennials prefer to watch entertainment content that is both engaging and informative.
The major challenges for vertical entertainment producers in India include maintaining strong storytelling within short durations, ensuring consistent quality at scale and monetisation. Limited budgets, high content volume demands, platform dependency, and the constant need to grab audience attention within the first few seconds are also key challenges, observes veteran producer Vinayak Jain, maker of many block-buster micro-dramas. “But the future of vertical entertainment in India looks promising. With increasing smartphone usage, faster internet and a growing mobile-first audience, vertical content will continue to scale rapidly. We will see better storytelling, higher production quality, stronger monetisation models and deeper integration with OTT and digital platforms, making vertical entertainment a strong pillar of India’s digital content ecosystem. Low internet data costs, wide internet reach across the country and fast-paced, relatable storytelling further drive the growing acceptance of micro-dramas across the country,” he adds.
Low ARPU makes it difficult
In India, the monetisation of micro-dramas remains uncertain as the market has a low average revenue per user (ARPU), making it difficult to establish stable revenue models. Viewers are resistant to long-term subscriptions for short content. While some are experimenting with pay-per-episode or coin-based models, these have yet to scale meaningfully, and high user acquisition costs coupled with high churn rates pose a significant risk. Digital advertising rates in India are low, and consumers are showing high advert fatigue, often skipping or muting ads. New data protection laws may also restrict targeted advertising.
Moreover, the short, easily adaptable nature of the entertainment content makes it highly vulnerable to piracy, stripping creators and platforms of potential revenue if a robust anti-piracy infrastructure is not established. Thus, micro-dramas in India, though experiencing explosive growth, face significant challenges with content fatigue, supply chain constraints, and unproven monetisation models. The core issue is scaling quality content and robust revenue streams in a market used to free, ad-supported content. And, over 70 per cent of current transactions rely on UPI autopay for regular subscriptions of Indian micro-drama platforms, a structural vulnerability, where any disruption could lead to massive user migration to free platforms. Many platforms are thus experimenting with hybrid models to capture revenue in the price-sensitive Indian market.
Also, to match the rapid demand of micro-drama entertainment content in India and prevent user drop-off, platforms require high content velocity or speed of production. India lacks the industrialised infrastructure, like script templates, AI tools for vertical framing, licensing marketplaces, etc, needed to produce high-quality, diverse content at scale, unlike the more mature Chinese market. And, the Indian market has a large number of micro-drama players, making discoverability a significant challenge for new entertainment content. Also, there is a lack of established infrastructure and talent specifically trained in the unique, fast-paced storytelling grammar required for micro-dramas, leading to reliance on improvisational workflows and potential creator burnout.
Vertical entertainment producers in India are facing several significant challenges,” informs Kundan Sharma, producer, Vistara Filmz. Monetisation remains a core hurdle, as platforms experiment with ad-supported and subscription models, making it difficult to achieve a consistent return on investment per minute of content. The crowded landscape and platform fragmentation create discovery friction; shows must be tailored to different specs, including aspect ratio, audio norms, and ad formats, sometimes necessitating multiple outputs from a single production. “Also, talent discovery and retention pose ongoing concerns, as producers seek fresh voices who can sustain engagement across episodes and seasons,” Sharma adds. “There is also a perennial tension between maintaining appealing, fresh storytelling and avoiding repetitive formulas that erode trust. Distributors and rights holders must navigate evolving licensing, revenue-sharing terms, and rural-urban infrastructural disparities that impact performance and monetisation”.
The Indian audience likes Chinese adaptations of vertical shows. The Chinese have mastered the art of short story telling, heightened drama and emotions, and they are addictive in nature. Most Indian vertical entertainment platforms currently adopt frame-to-frame Chinese stories in repetitive ways. At least 15-18 per cent of the 670 million Instagram users of India (roughly 100 million Indian subscribers) would have access to more than one vertical entertainment app on their mobile phones in the near future, contends Rohit Guptaa, a visionary filmmaker, serial tech entrepreneur & founder, Reeloid, an Indian mobile video streaming app. “Although going forward, entertainment content distribution would become a challenge for any upcoming vertical app or micro drama platform in India,” he adds.
Indian micro-drama platforms, such as Reeloid, Vertical, Kuku, Pocket, Story, Flick, Quick, Moj, Fatafat, Bullet, and many others, have revolutionised the Indian entertainment industry, as television has become a secondary screen in India. At the same time, mobile phones are the primary screens for most users in the country to consume niche entertainment content. This has led to a mobile phone-friendly entertainment content production boom in the country and has opened a plethora of opportunities for actors, directors, technicians and also the producers. The swanky bungalows located in Madh Island, a peninsular locality in the northern part of Mumbai, have become a favourite location for the producers to shoot vertical series micro-dramas. However, the stellar growth of vertical entertainment micro-dramas in India is gradually becoming horizontal and multi-dimensional too.