Category: All Worldwide (non UK/Euro/US)
Russian Online Dating on The Rise
RN WIRE — May 31 — According to the results of an online opinion poll 1,461 respondents held by ROMIR this spring, 32% of the Russian Internet audience use various online dating services. The majority of them are Muscovites (71%) and young people between 18 and 24 years old (41%). LovePlanet.ru is the second most popular online dating service, which is being used by 29% of survey respondents. The Finam investment company forecasts online dating services revenues in Russia will increase by more than 30% in 2007, from $34m to $45m. Experts from iKS-Consulting expect that the turnover of the online dating services will double this year. FULL ARTICLE @ RN WIRE
MSN China Partners With Marry5.com
PR NEWSWIRE — May 30 — China’s MSN added channel partner, Marry5.com. It recently signed agreements with Eastday.com, Hexun.com, Ctrip.com and Yesky.com also to reinforce the MSN Chinese website's brand positioning of "fashionable life, white-collar portal." Marry5.com (founded October 2005, 300k monthly paying members) paid high "rental fees" to become a content provider for MSN. The high-profile promotion initiative has resulted in speculation that Marry5.com's move is an omen of accelerating its proposed IPO in 2008. According to iResearch, China's online social-networking market reached RMB175 million in 2006, up 169% from a year ago. At the same time, it is expected that the market will reach RMB1.2 billion by 2010, with a compound annual growth rate of 85%. The monthly fee of just RMB50 ($7 US) has attracted a great number of singles. Before its cooperation with MSN, Marry5.com had a monthly income of RMB 2.30 million, which now is estimated at more than RMB 5 million.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: According to Alexa, Love21cn.com is China’s leading internet dating site followed by Marry5.com, ‘serious dating’ site Baihe.com and 96333.com. I did a video interview with the CEO of Baihe.com two weeks ago. I’ll be sending a video interview with the CEO of 96333.com live shortly.
Notes From Asian Friends-Making Conference
OPW — May 25 — The Asian internet dating and social networking conference (a.k.a friends-making) was well attended with ~45 people, and increase of 25% over last year. Not a touch on the Miami conference which had 350+ attendees, but hey, this is a (very) emerging market. It’s a market with a lot of challenges. Here’s some keypoints from a couple of my favorite presentations. – Mark Brooks
51friend.net – Serious Dating
– 3 million couples divorced each year.
– Tens of thousands of offline events in China.
– From 1980, only one child per couple, so young generation tend to be well educated and choosy.
– Over 4 million students graduate from uni each year.
– 20% divorce. 10% marrieds not happy.
Yeeyoo – Social Network
– ‘Matchmaking’ and ‘dating’ is known as ‘serious dating’
– 114 million internet users in China; 2 or 3 people use each computer
– 414 million wireless users
– Yeeyoo offers an anonymous calling service which makes 1-2 RMB per min
– Meetic acquired Yeeyoo for $20 million
– Meetic made $100 million revenue last year and 8% was from mobile
– Mobile could be the same size as online dating in the next 5 years
– Yeeyoo won’t be charging for membership, not possible, lack of payment systems, will sign another deal like their China.com cobrand deal. No profit in mind. They have a lot of loss in mind. Meetic is being introduced to China on top of Yeeyoo.
– Text messages are 1-2 RMB. 15/85 split with China Mobile, 15% to the carrier
– Takes 2-3 months to get the payment
– 10% lost through bad debts or fraud
96333.com – Paid Dating Service
– Few Chinese have credit cards.
– But, 800 million have debit cards. However, there’s no auto renewals on debit cards.
– Billing available through mobile telecom operator billing partners with auto renews. Conversions are good because it’s very convenient. Cons: Capped at RMB 10 per month and only monthly subscriptions available.
– There are no credit rating services in China i.e. no Experian/Transunions yet
99Bill – Leading Chinese Billing Service
– 99Bill has 230 employees, 28 months old, has 16 million registered accounts.
– Can bill from 97% of credit and debit cards and 150 million prepaid cards and stored value card holders which are popular with the younger generation.
– 99Bill offers recurring billing, most others can’t, 99Bill has advanced risk mgmt system
– Economy Growth: 8-10% annual growth in GDP
– 71 banks offer online banking
– 760k merchants, 900k POS, 400k ATMs
– 3G coming in 2008
YeePay – Another Chinese Biling Service
– There are no personal checks in China
– Postal and bank wires available, COD. Prepaid cards.
– There’s virtually no protection for the consumers. No chargebacks!
– Lose your card and you are liable
– Another popular billing service is Alipay which is like paypal, used on Taobao (China’s ebay)
– Yeepay offers online and offline payment services
– Debit cards have passwords which are very sensitive and so debit card payments can only be entered at the banks website.
Romance Blooms in Love21cn and Sina Partnership
INTERFAX — May 23 — Chinese online matchmaking service provider Love21cn.com (5 million registered) will partner with Sina’s friends-making channel to integrate resources and expand businesses. Established in October 2003, Love21cn.com was one of the earliest matchmaking service providers in China and received a RMB 40 million ($5.2 million) investment last month from founders of Nasdaq-listed language school New Oriental Education and Technology Group to support its business expansion. “One of the challenges for running a Web site is to ensure the credibility of the information users provide," said Gong Haiyan, the Founder. "We have been very careful and have put a lot of effort into developing the user identity management system of our Web site. Users can file a complaint if they find someone submitting false information and we will block him or her from using our services." Revenue of China’s online matchmaking market is expected to reach RMB 653 million ($85.4 million) by 2008, with an average annual growth of 106% (iResearch).
Muslim Cyber-Love
JERUSALEM POST — May 9 — Qiran.com, arablounge.com, onlinearabia.net, misyar.com. A decade ago, dating sites were unheard of in conservative Arab and Muslim societies, where most marriages were arranged by parents. While gathering material on the Web for this article, I was approached on Skype by Ali, who was equipped with a Web-cam. "As a matter of fact, I prefer marrying someone outside of the kingdom, since then both the dowry demands and the wedding would be less expensive," he explained. The religious establishment sees these Web sites as another attempt to corrupt Muslim society. Numerous fatwas (religious edicts) were published against matchmaking Web sites, chatting with the opposite sex and any on-line interaction whatsoever for dating. In Egypt a man could be arrested and in Saudi Arabia even killed if accused of homosexual tendencies. In Saudi Arabia, polygamy is legal, weddings are expensive and the divorce rate is 30- 35%.
The full article was originally published at JPost, but is no longer available.
First Chinese “Dating Street”
CHINA NEWS — May 8 — According to a report by Wuhan Morning Post, Wuhan has set up the first dating street in China. The service from shops on the street will be free of charge. Information of candidates will be put on bulletin boards along the street (300 candidates at a time). Those interested can fill in an interest card. 150 people have handed in their applications, most being in their 30s, including college teachers, scientists and public servants. Interestingly, there are more women candidates than men. Wuhan is planning to set up another 4 to 9 dating streets like this one in the next 12 months.
FULL ARTICLE @ CHINA DAILY
Mark Brooks: The Asian Internet Dating Conference is coming up on May 17th-18th.
Bharatmatrimony Group Bags PC World Web Award
PC WORLD — May 8 — BharatMatrimony ranked as the best website for its overall performance in the Matrimony space. PC World recently conducted a research on 126 online Indian companies from various categories. The awards were based on the sites design, usability, technology usage, navigation, framework of the site, interface, user experience, error handling and security. “BharatMatrimony uses lot of visual aids and perfect eye friendly color combinations which makes the layout of the site attractive. The other award winning websites include Yahoo! Games, FutureBazaar for Shopping, Gmail for E-mails, Yahoo for Portals, MonsterIndia for Jobs, and Orkut for social networking. See PC World.
The full article was originally published at PC World, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: BharatMatrimony competes with Shaadi in India. They are the leading matrimonials sites.
Muslim, Traditional, but Finding Love on the Web
REUTERS — May 1 — Over the past two years there has been a boom in the use of Web sites that introduce Muslim men and women for marriage. Singlemuslim.com , which calls itself Britain's largest Muslim introductions agency, has seen registered users double over the past year to 100,000 and is opening sites in the U.S., Canada and Australia. On some sites, more than half the registered users are professional women with above-average incomes who use the service to save time and broaden the scope of their search. They are direct and demanding about what they are looking for. Shaadi.com, 'the world's largest matrimonial service,' has 10 million users, most in South Asia — in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In Britain, 700,000 are registered, 40% average annual income of 40,000 pounds.
The full article was originally published at NY Times, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: BharatMatrimony.com is Shaadi's leading competitor, and WorldSingles.com runs a number of niche dating sites focused on Muslims.
Muslim, Traditional, but Finding Love on the Web
REUTERS — May 1 — Over the past two years there has been a boom in the use of Web sites that introduce Muslim men and women for marriage. Singlemuslim.com , which calls itself Britain's largest Muslim introductions agency, has seen registered users double over the past year to 100,000 and is opening sites in the U.S., Canada and Australia. On some sites, more than half the registered users are professional women with above-average incomes who use the service to save time and broaden the scope of their search. They are direct and demanding about what they are looking for. Shaadi.com, 'the world's largest matrimonial service,' has 10 million users, most in South Asia — in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In Britain, 700,000 are registered, 40% average annual income of 40,000 pounds.
The full article was originally published at NY Times, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: BharatMatrimony.com is Shaadi's leading competitor, and WorldSingles.com runs a number of niche dating sites focused on Muslims.