Online Personals Watch: News on the Online Dating Industry and Business

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

Bharat Matrimony Launches Video Chat

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.

See full article at Times of India

See all posts on 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.

See full article at Pragativadi

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

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).

See full article at Moneylife

See the top news on Matrimony

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

See all posts on BharatMatrimony
See all posts on Shaadi

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.

by Dipti Nair
See full article at YourStory

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

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 24x7.

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

Subscribe to OPW + Join IDEA + Hire Us

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.

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

Subscribe to OPW + Join IDEA + Hire Us

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

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

Subscribe to OPW + Join IDEA + Hire Courtland Brooks Agency-Consultancy

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

See all posts on Matrimony.com

Subscribe to OPW + Join IDEA + Engage CB

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

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

Subscribe to OPW + Join IDEA + Engage CB

BharatMatrimony Launches New Dating App In 8 Languages

NEWSNATION - July 9 - Aimed at serving a larger audience, the new app was launched by BharatMatrimony, an online matchmaking service provider. The mobile app will be available in eight languages - Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi and Gujarati. The Indian languages internet user base was expected to grow to 536 million by 2021. Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu has the largest language users on the web in the country.

See full article at NewsNation

See all posts on BharatMatrimony

Summarized by the IDEA team

Q&A With Matrimony CEO - Murugavel Janakiraman

FINANCIAL EXPRESS - May 31 - India's leading online matrimony service provider, Matrimony.com (an arm of BharatMatrimony), is bullish on the opportunities the $54-billion industry throws.

Q: What has been the size and growth of the wedding industry and online matrimonial industry in India over the last five years?
A: The wedding services industry is worth ~$56B. The matchmaking and wedding industry has been growing steadily 25% - 30% every year. 10 - 12M marriages are taking place annually in India and with only 6% of the market going online to find a life partner, there is a huge opportunity for matchmaking services.

Q: How is the wedding industry?
A: It is largely unorganised and that presents a good opportunity for us. We offer MatrimonyPhotography, MatrimonyMandaps (wedding venue discovery platform) and MatrimonyBazaar.

Q: How has your journey been till now?
A: Matrimony.com is the market leader with a 60% share in online matchmaking. ~3.72M profiles were added in FY18.

by R. Ravichandran
See full article at Financial Express

See all posts on Matrimony.com

Summarized by the IDEA team

BharatMatrimony Buys SecondShaadi.com

VCCRICLE - Mar 1 - Matrimony.com, which owns BharatMatrimony, has acquired SecondShaadi.com from Accentium Web. Matrimony.com received board approval for the acquisition on Thursday. It did not disclose the value of the deal. "Buying SecondShaadi will help us consolidate our offerings and help divorcees and widowers get wider choices than ever before," Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of Matrimony.com, said. Like SecondShaadi.com, Matrimony.com also operates a platform for divorcees called DivorceeMatrimony.com. In September 2016, the Bombay High Court had ruled in favour of SecondShaadi.com against a petition filed by People Interactive, which owns rival matrimonial portal Shaadi.com. Shaadi.com wanted Accentium Web Pvt. to stop using the word 'shaadi' in its domain name. However, the court said in its order that the word 'shaadi' is generic, and hence, Shaadi.com cannot stop others from using the word as a prefix or suffix for their portals.

by Keshav Sunkara
See full article at VCCircle

See all posts on BharatMatrimony
See all posts on SecondShaadi

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the IDEA team