TIMES OF INDIA – June 18 – Bharat Matrimony has launched a new online video chat feature. Woman can only receive video calls from premium members they contacted or responded to earlier. On the other hand, men can get video calls from any premium female member and will be able to call only women who responded to their earlier enquiry.
Category: BharatMatrimony
BharatMatrimony Launches Home Wedding Platform
PRAGATIVADI – June 3 – BharatMatrimony is launching a platform "HomeWeddings", on Matrimony Bazaar, to provide the entire range of COVID-Safe wedding services from catering to makeup including purohits at the doorstep, to help couples happily tie the knot. This service is open to the public, not just BharatMatrimony members. Launched in 2016, Matrimony Bazaar is India's largest wedding planning marketplace that provides wedding services, ranging from catering to clothing. The platform has ~22K verified wedding service providers across 37 cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Cochin and Bengaluru.
Matrimony.com: No Growth in a Growth Market
MONEYLIFE – May 11 – Matrimony.com Ltd offers a platform for online matchmaking and marriage services, one of the first companies to provide such services in India. It now has a database of 4.38M active profiles. Matrimony has 134 retail centres where customers can walk in and seek the assistance to register on websites or make payment for the matchmaking product. Its flagship brand, BharatMatrimony, has 15 language-based domains under its umbrella. Matchingmaking services makes up 97% of its business revenue. Matrimony also caters in the marriage service industry. The wedding services industry is worth ~$56B in India. The matchmaking and wedding industry has been growing at 20-25% every year. 10-12M marriages take place annually in India. Matrimony's 2019 revenues grew just 4% from Rs335crore ($44M) in FY2018 to Rs348crore ($46M) for FY2019. Matchmaking segment grew 9.49% YOY. Revenues for marriage services declined by 22.7% for the same period. As far as the profitability margins are concerned, Matrimony has been able to increase its operating profit margins since FY2015. Margins have improved from 3% in FY2016 to 14% for FY2019. Matrimony is currently trading at Rs341 ($4.5) which is 65% below its issue price of Rs985 ($13).
The Rise of Bharat Matrimony
THE NEWS MINUTE – Sep 23 – BharatMatrimony's origin began in the US in 1997 when Murugavel Janakiraman started a website for the Tamil community, called sysindia.com. The site included features like the Tamil daily calendar, festival reminders, tips and matrimonial service which later became BharatMatrimony. In 2000, he returned to India to start his own office in Chennai. Muruga was inspired by IAC and began to create his network of websites. Clickjobs.com and Indiaproperty.com were launched in 2005. Indialist.com (local classifieds modelled on Craigslist), Loanwala.com and Indiaautomobile.com were next in line. In 2005, things started changing. Companies that had been around for a while and had survived the dot-com crash were seeing a lot of interest from investors. The biggest competitor Shaadi.com raised $8M. Muruga met more than ten investors around that time but couldn't raise money from any of them. "We were generating $4M in revenue and some of the investors made lowball offers of $10M valuations," he said. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the investment bankers organised a meeting with Yahoo! Cannan Partners got the wind that Yahoo! was considering an investment in BharatMatrimony and jumped in to participate in the round. In August 2006, BharatMatrimony announced an $8.65M financing from Yahoo! and Cannan Partners. Yahoo! dumped Shaadi.com as their exclusive partner and replaced them with BharatMatrimony. "We kind of spent most of the money on marketing. We had a play in all these classifieds like jobs, matrimonial, real estate, and vehicles with competitors in each. It turned out that $8M was too little for the entire portfolio to grow and succeed." Thankfully, for Muruga, right before they ran out of cash in early 2008, they managed to raise ~$11.75M. This time, Mayfield Fund led the round and there was participation from existing investors, Yahoo! and Canaan Partners. "We plan to leverage this fund to expand our matrimony business in the international markets and to strengthen our classifieds offerings."
by Sidharth Rao
See full article at The News Minute
BharatMatrimony Continues to Match Millions of Indians in the Times of Tinder
YOURSTORY – May 28 – With 3.72M active profiles as on date, every year, more than 100K success stories are reported by members on India's largest matrimonial site, Bharatmatrimony. Bharatmatrimony started in 1997, and is now a listed company with estimated revenue of Rs 350 crore in 2018 ($50M). The company is now eyeing the $56B wedding services market in India, with services like MatrimonyMandaps (makes wedding venue booking easy), MatrimonyPhotography, MatrimonyBazaar (wedding related products and services like honeymoon packages, jewellery, and catering), and MatrimonyDirectory (a wedding classifieds portal with ~50K vendors). The company's founder Murugavel Janakiraman got married through his own portal. He does not see the rise of online dating apps as posing much threat. He is playing the 'tradition' game. And for all practical purposes, tradition trumps everything else in India.
BharatMatrimony Launches “Find Your Equal” TV Campaign
LINKEDIN – Apr 15 – BharatMatrimony, India matrimony service, has partnered with NDTV to do a campaign 'Find Your Equal – In Marriage, In Life'. The show premiered on Sunday 14th April on NDTV India and NDTV 24×7.
BharatMatrimony Rolls Out a New Safety Feature for Women
OPW – Mar 13 – On Women's Day, BharatMatrimony launched 'SecureConnect', a new calling feature that enables women to receive calls from male members, who have a premium membership, without revealing their contact number.
The Times of India Forges Partnership With BharatMatrimony.com
EXCHANGE4MEDIA – Feb 21 – Members of BharatMatrimony can now walk into any of Times of India's network of franchisees and subscribe to BharatMatrimony's matchmaking services at a special price.
See full article at Exchange4Media
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Matrimony.com Launches Dubai Office
TRADE ARABIA – Dec 7 – Matrimony.com, a leader in online matrimony, has entered the UAE market through its flagship brand BharatMatrimony as part of its strategic expansion plans. The platform has inaugurated an office at Fortune Executive Tower, Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai, to serve Indians in the Middle East region. Matrimony.com, a publicly-listed company, is headquartered in Chennai, India.
See full article at Trade Arabia
BharatMatrimony Survey: What Girls Expect from a Life Partner
INDULGE EXPRESS – Nov 29 – When asked "what's more important to you while choosing a partner", 44% of women said "Equality is most important in a relationship." In response to "Do you believe there's any work strictly defined as a man's or a woman's job" a whopping 90% of the respondents feel that everything is equal be it career, household chores or baby care. Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO at Matrimony.com said: "BharatMatrimony is constantly looking to highlight the aspirations of young girls when it comes to finding a life partner. The survey insights help us understand young women, improve our product and enhance the customer experience."
by F. Ashraf
See full article at Indulge Express