iWorld
SonyLIV doubles MAUs to 15.6mn in Feb: App Annie report
MUMBAI: SonyLIV continued to reign the online pie by grabbing more eyeballs in the month of February. It added 7.9 million monthly active users (MAUs) in its kitty. The platform has doubled its base within a month from 7.7 million MAUs to 15.6 million MAUs and has stomped to the third position from fifth last month (January), according to App Annie data report. This ranking is a combination of iOS App Store and Google Play Store.
According to the report, YouTube is on the top of all digital platforms with 178.1 million MAUs, followed by Hotstar at 48.1 million MAUs. Amazon Prime Video was in the fourth position with 13.4 million active users. Voot garnered the fifth position with a total of 10.7 million active users overall. The international giant Netflix had 6 million active users and stood at the sixth position. The latest OTT player, Zee5, has left a remarkable mark on the audience within a month of its launch by successfully engaging 5.6 million users on its platform.
Though SonyLIV has an array of web series, movies, sports, catch up TV shows, music and more, the credit to increase in the viewership clearly goes to the recent India-South Africa cricket series streamed during February.
App Annie is an app market data and insights company headquartered in San Francisco, California. App Annie focuses on the state of video streaming apps in Asia-Pacific region including emerging markets such as India, China and Thailand, among others.
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iWorld
Applause Entertainment partners with Story TV for premium microdramas
Collaboration to produce and adapt content for mobile-first audiences starting 2026.
MUMBAI: Applause Entertainment just shrunk the drama screen because when stories fit in your pocket, even the biggest plots feel like a quick binge. Applause Entertainment, the Aditya Birla Group-backed content powerhouse behind hits like Black Warrant, The Hunt, Criminal Justice and Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, has entered an exclusive partnership with Story TV, India’s leading microdrama platform, to create a slate of premium short-form series for mobile-first viewers.
Under the agreement, the two companies will co-produce new-age microdramas across multiple genres. Story TV will also acquire rights to Applause’s romantic-thriller series Hello Mini and adapt it into a vertical microdrama format.
Story TV, which launched in July 2025, has quickly become a dominant player in the microdrama space with a library exceeding 1000 titles in romance, thriller, action and family drama across Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. The platform ranks as the second most downloaded entertainment app worldwide, according to Sensor Tower data.
Story TV founder and CEO Saurabh Pandey said, “As an early entrant into microdramas in India we are at the forefront of blending storytelling and technology to expand this emerging format into mainstream territory. Our partnership with Applause Entertainment will further expand the audience of microdramas with a focus on premium storytelling that is yet to be seen in the Indian entertainment industry.”
Applause Entertainment chief business officer Prasoon Garg added, “At Applause, our focus has always been on building strong stories across formats. As newer storytelling formats like microdramas gain momentum, we see value in engaging with them through meaningful collaborations. Our unique partnership with Story TV enables us to explore this emerging space alongside a platform that has demonstrated strong understanding of the format and its audiences.”
The tie-up positions both companies to capitalise on the rapid rise of bite-sized, vertical content tailored for smartphone consumption, where attention spans are short and global reach is instant.
In a screen-sized world where stories now race against the scroll, Applause and Story TV aren’t just making microdramas, they’re proving that the smallest screen can still deliver the biggest emotional punch, one vertical episode at a time.
