ECONOMIC TIMES – Oct 12 – Yahoo has sold its stake in the company that owns the online matchmaking portal bharatmatrimony.com, valuing it at $190M. BharatMatrimony, which makes its money through subscriptions, competes with shaadi.com, jeevansathi.com and simplymarry.com, which is owned by the Times Group.
Category: All Worldwide (non UK/Euro/US)
International Chinese Dating Site IsThisFate.com Launches
OPW – Sep 22 - Jiayuan.com, China's largest online dating site, has launched its English version – IsThisFate.com. Is ThisFate.com is aimed at expats living in China, overseas Chinese looking to reconnect, and anyone interested in Chinese romance.
Jiayuan.com: Were They Fit to List at All?
WSJ – Sep 15 - Western regulators are grappling with a growing list of frauds at Chinese companies listed overseas. Jiayuan.com is by all accounts an entirely above-board Chinese company. Because foreign investment is technically forbidden in the Internet services sector, Jiayuan.com created a "variable-interest entity," or VIE—a common feature of many Chinese listings. Under this structure, the operating part of the company and the overseas listed part are two completely separate entities. The Chinese-owned part signs a series of contracts with the listed entity to transfer revenues in a way that allows the books of the two companies to be consolidated under U.S. accounting rules. It's a risky structure since the foreign shareholders don't actually own the Chinese company. A rule issued in 2006 requires Chinese residents to register with the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) before setting up offshore companies. Jiayuan's founders failed to do this when they created the offshore entities used in the VIE structure. Jiayuan says it has now completed the required registrations, but the question remains: Why was the IPO brought to market before this potentially fatal problem was resolved?
by Paul Gillis
See full article at WSJ
Zhenai.com Becomes World’s Largest Matchmaking Website with Membership Exceeding 20 Million
PR NEWSWIRE – Sep 1 - Zhenai.com, China's largest matchmaking site, announced that the number of its registered members reached 20M. With ~40K new members each day, Zhenai exceeded the membership registered on Match.com in the US (Match.com claims 15M members). Jiayuan, a Chinese dating website that closely trails Zhenai.com in the number of registered members, announced on its official website that its total registered members bypassed 17M. iResearch Consulting predicted that the number of Chinese online daters will reach 140M by 2010. Presently these two websites account for one third of the total registered members in mainland China.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Read OPW interviews with Dr Song Li, CEO of Zhenai: June 2007, June 2008
Mamba.ru to Speak at the iDate in Moscow
WEBWIRE – Sep 9 - Mamba.ru will present at the European Internet Dating Conference. The event takes place on September 29-30, 2011 at the Holiday Inn Lesnaya Hotel in Moscow. Andrei Bronetskyi, the CEO of Mamba, will discuss the online dating market in Russia.
Jiayuan Grooms New Plan
WSJ – Sep 7 - Jiayuan makes money primarily by charging users to exchange love notes through its website for two yuan each. Jiayuan is growing quickly, with Q2 revenue more than doubling from a year earlier to $12.9M and earnings growing at a similar pace. The move toward user fees comes as the online ad market is growing in China and getting crowded with sites seeking advertisers. The market still is small compared with that of the U.S. Total revenue from online ads in China reached $4 billion last year. The U.S. online ad market last year reached $26 billion. 80% of Jiayuan's revenue now comes from paid messaging.
by Loretta Chao
See full article at WSJ
Marry for Love, Not Money, China Tells Gold-digger Brides
DAILY TELEGRAPH – Aug 21 - With divorce rates soaring, the Chinese government is now trying to stop women marrying for money, rather than love. "There are more and more girls who want to marry rich men and improve their financial position. It has been a notable increase," said Wang Zhiguo, a consultant at Baihe, a Beijing-based matchmaking website. "It is an unhealthy trend and the government is now trying to restrict it." There were 2.68M divorces last year.
by Malcolm Moore
The full article was originally published at Vancouver Sun, but is no longer available.
Jiayuan.com Slammed as “China’s Largest One-Night Stand Site”
PENN OLSON – Aug 17 - Jiayuan was attacked by state media’s People’s Daily for not really being a “wedding” site, as Jiayuan’s tagline suggests, but more like an organizer of over-expensive group date nights that result in lots of inappropriate touching and other malarkey. The People’s Daily recounts the story of one 30-year old man who was annoyed at being – he felt – tricked into buying virtual credits. The newspaper is more concerned with the pricier products that Jiayuan sells, such as its hand-curated match-making service for 40,000 RMB (US$6,300), and maxes out at 200,000 RMB. A lack of a real name policy on Jiayuan is also called out.
TwoMangoes.com Viral Video
PRESS RELEASE – Aug 15 – The Impact New Venture Competition recognizes the ideas of young South Asian entrepreneurs from around the world. TwoMangoes presented a 2-minute pitch to a panel of leading business professionals. TwoMangoes.com plans to change the world of South Asian dating with their fresh, innovative and anti-matrimonial approach to love and relationships.
Jiayuan Announces Q2 2011 Financial Results
PR NEWSWIRE – Aug 10 - Jiayuan.com International, operator of the largest online dating platform in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the Q2 '11. Net revenues were RMB 83.3M ($12.9M), representing a YOY increase of 121.0%. Operating income was RMB 6.1M ($0.9M), representing a YOY increase of 132.2%. Jiayuan had 5,429,176 average monthly active user accounts, an increase from 3,686,260 in Q2 '10. The number of average monthly paying user accounts was 1,139,171, representing an increase of 130.1% from 495,036 average monthly paying user accounts in Q2 '10.
The full article was originally published at Sun Herald, but is no longer available.