TELEGRAPH.CO.UK -- June 7 -- Boasting
10m members and a million marriages in 11 years, Shaadi (400 employees)
has
been a runaway success. Shaadi.com was launched in 1997 by Anupam
Mittal, a business graduate of Boston College in the US. Now Shaadi is
one of India's five most popular
sites. It boasts 300m page views
each month and 6,000 new profiles are added every day (60% of
which are male). Despite having the second fastest-growing economy in
the world,
India remains a deeply conservative society, especially where marriage
and relationships are concerned. A recent magazine survey revealed that
more than 60% of young unmarried Indians disapproved of the
idea of sex before marriage; 40% said they wanted to marry
within their own caste. An estimated 95% of all marriages in
India are arranged, usually after lengthy negotiations between two
families. Shaadi.com also provides additional services: a
directory listing of wedding-related services; a lifestyle website, shaaditimes.com, with features on travel, fashion and health; and a sister site, secondshaadi.com,
for divorcees and widows. There are also more than 150 Shaadi.com
Centres in 87 Indian cities, where parents and children can sit down
with a relationship adviser and trawl the company's database. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
Mark Brooks: Bharat Matrimony is Shaadi's main competitor in India. I interviewed Bharat Matrimony's CEO/Founder here (Dec' 2006). Both companies use a network of agents to service those without computers and the internet across India.
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