NEWSPATROLLING – This annual report is based on users' activities on Bharat Matrimony, India's biggest matchmaking platform. 2022 saw 280M member logins from singles across India and abroad. A total of 432,520 members confirmed meeting their life partner on Bharat Matrimony last year. Singles between 25 and 29 years were the most active users on Bharat Matrimony – with Sundays being the most active time when online sessions peaked.
Category: BharatMatrimony
Chennai-based Matrimony Enters Bangladesh’s Matchmaking Market
THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS – Matrimony, believes that the market has huge potential in the country following societal and lifestyle changes of urban people. BangladeshiMatrimony says it gets ~1,000 clients a day now. It provides round-the-clock call-center service to those who are looking for life partners. Matrimony.com Limited, whose flagship brand is BharatMatrimony, has ~4K employees working at ~20 offices across India.
by Jasim Uddin Haroon
See full article at The Financial Express
Homegrown Indian Dating Platforms
FORBES INDIA – Dec 23 – The online dating industry in India is worth $323M, and the country is the third-largest revenue generator, after the US and China. Although foreign dating apps were the first to create a significant mark in India, homegrown apps are now witnessing a slow and steady rise. These include Aisle, Truly Madly or HiHi. They are positioning themselves as means to look for longer-term relationships. But they still lag far behind older match-making platforms. Beginning with Bharat Matrimony (matrimony.com) in 1997, online platforms to look for life partners is now estimated to be worth $260M, with some of the big players being Matrimony.com, Jeevansathi.com and Shaadi.com. According to Statista, the number of registrations on Matrimony.com were 40M as of FY20, up from 18M in FY14. From having ~10% market share in 2010s, they now have 50% market share.
Q&A With CEO of Matrimony.com – 20 Years of ‘Happy Marriages’
STIMULUS – Dec 18 – Murugavel Janakiraman has been in the business of online matrimony for two decades. He officially started in 2000 with BharatMatrimony.
Q: What has been the impact of Covid19 on the business?
A: Covid has made us more efficient and lean. It's like when you lose your extra fat and feel fit and energetic.
Q: Digital adoption has increased. We see some conversations leading to marriages on apps like Tinder. How has the ecosystem changed in recent years?
A: There are 60M people looking for a life partner at any given point in time, of which ~7M – 8M are registered with online matrimony sites. So there is definitely headroom to grow. Thanks to Covid and the increased digital adoption, we think the category will grow much more strongly. We don't see dating apps as a challenge. They can remain distant cousins of matrimony sites, for a different set of users and for a different purpose.
Q: Has the number of women listing their own profiles increased?
A: Today, overall number of females registered is ~30%. ~70% of all profiles are created by individuals. 85% of male profiles are created by individuals themselves, while 50% of female profiles are created by the individuals themselves. The remaining 50% would be a mix of parents, siblings and others.
Q: Alongside the growth of the category, the brand has also evolved. Can you walk us through that journey?
A: If you look at our commercials from 15 years ago, they were primarily targeted at parents. Later we realised that we need to target the single individuals. Then we started focusing on what is it that will help people get into a happy marriage. We also realised that women want equality in relationships.
Q: How closely involved are you with the brand's creative process?
A: I am pretty much involved in everything end-to-end, from the scripts to all the discussions.
Q: Early on, you ventured into multiple verticals like jobs, property and automobiles. What was the thinking then and how did the narrowing down happen, to focus on matrimony?
A: In Matrimony, you cannot have a lifelong user. But our users are also using other verticals like jobs and property so we wanted to leverage the strong audience that we had built. In 2008-'09 there was a global recession. We were left with a million or so and were losing Rs.1 to 2 crore a month. We decided to focus on matrimony and property. I had to let go of other businesses. If the ecosystem is what it is today, we would have raised money and we would have probably succeeded.
Within matrimony, we are focusing on matchmaking and wedding services. And within matchmaking, we are now focusing on global opportunities. We are the number one in SriLanka today. We have BangladeshiMatrimony, NepaliMatrimony; we have now also launched MuslimMatrimony.com. We are looking at more opportunities in places like South East Asia.
Matrimony.com Stock Hits Fresh 52-week High
BUSINESS STANDARD – Dec 3 – Shares of Matrimony.com hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 795, surging 10% on the BSE in the intra-day trade on Thursday. ~500,155 equity shares, representing 2.2% stake of the company, changed hands via bulk deal on the BSE, exchange data show. The names of the buyers and sellers could not be ascertained immediately. Matrimony.com is one of the leading consumer Internet companies in India, managing brands such as BharatMatrimony, CommunityMatrimony and EliteMatrimony. The Company delivers matchmaking and marriage related services to users in India and the Indian diaspora. In the past two weeks, the stock has rallied 27% after SBI Mutual Fund (MF) bought an additional 744,279 shares, or 3.3% stake, in Matrimony.com through its various schemes.
BharatMatrimony Parent’s Q2 Profit up 31% YOY
FINANCIAL EXPRESS – Nov 6 – Matrimony.com's revenue increased 1.1% to Rs 93.3 crore ($12.6M) in Q2 FY21 from Q2 FY20. The company reported a jump of 31.2% YOY in net profit to Rs 10.3 crores ($1.4M) for the July-September quarter. The matchmaking business revenue was up by 4.6% YOY to Rs 92.7 ($12.5M) crores while it added 2.1 lakh (210K) paid subscriptions during the quarter, up by 25.7% YOY.
by Sandeep Soni
See full article at Financial Express
BharatMatrimony Introduces 100% ID Verified Profiles
UNITED NEWS OF INDIA – Nov 2 – BharatMatrimony, India's leading matrimony service, is launching Prime, a membership service that offers 100% ID verified profiles. To be eligible for BharatMatrimony Prime, members should 1) Hold a degree (graduation or above), 2) Verify their ID (driving license, passport, PAN card or ration card) and 3) Upload a profile photo. BharatMatrimony has recently launched a slew of new features to provide a safe environment to female members. These include:
- Control who can view and contact you
- Unique SecureConnect feature which lets members receive calls from prospects without revealing their mobile number
- Choose who can video call with you
Matrimony.com Expects Double Digit Growth to Continue
DEVDISCOURSE – Sep 28 – Matchmaking service provider Matrimony.com saw its membership grow by 30% during the pandemic, Matrimony.com founder-CEO, Murugavel Janakiraman said. The company is expecting to record double-digit growth in revenues and will invest in products and marketing. According to the company statement, Matrimony.com holds a 60% market share and BharatMatrimony is the flagship brand. For the year ending March 31, 2020, the company reported revenues of Rs 372 crore ($50M) with 7 lakh (700K) subscribers.
Matrimonial Sites Are Innovating During the Pandemic
QUARTZ INDIA – July 13 – The pandemic is forcing many industries to innovate and come up with ideas that help them stay relevant in the "new normal." On June 22, Shaadi.com, one of India's most popular matrimonial sites, launched a video calling feature. On the first day of the launch, the service was used by ~75K users, and on the next day, ~100K people tried the feature. In less than a month, ~500~ users have made video calls on Shaadi.com. Bharat Matrimony and Jeevansathi.com have also witnessed significant traffic to their video calling service.
by Hiren Mansukhani
See full article at Quartz India
See the top news on Shaadi
See the top news on Jeevansathi
See the top news on BharatMatrimony
India’s Matrimony Portals Come of Age With Video Calls and Zoom Call Weddings
BUSINESS INSIDER – June 28 – Matrimonial sites such as Shaadi.com, Bharat Matrimony and Jeevansaathi.com took arranged marriage setup online many years ago. Now, they came up with new solutions – video call meet-ups and zoom call weddings. Potential bride and grooms are now meeting each other for the first time over a video call. Shaadi.com launched Shaadi Meet – a video calling feature on its platform on June 19. Within two days, 105K people had used the feature. The platform has also launched 'weddings from home' for online marriages. Jeevansathi.com saw a 60% increase in the number of voice and video calls in the lockdown period as compared to the 11-week prior average. Keeping safety in mind, Shaadi.com allows users to set their convenient time to receive a Meet Request and can also decide who can invite them for a Meet. Meanwhile, Bharatmatrimony which launched the feature on June 18, kept it exclusively for premium members. Women can only receive video calls from Premium Members they contacted or responded to earlier.
by Sanchita Dash
See full article at Business Insider
See the top news on Shaadi
See the top news on Jeevansathi
See the top news on BharatMatrimony
