Online Matchmaking in India is Part of a $20 billion Industry

27 June 2007 - 12:43

Online Matchmaking Indian-style

For the full article by Danil Pepper see Indian Matchmaking
Matchmaking in India is a $300 million business

One Indian matchmaking service, Shaadi.com, has a database of 400,000 verified candidates (that’s a lot of verification !) and a global audience of 9 million registered users (and rising). For a fee of $200 you will be ranked higher, and adverts will be placed in newspapers. I've always been fascinated by money and the influence it exerts! Perhaps that should be the subject of another blog?.

Arranged marriages are nothing new in India of course but technology is now starting to replace the more traditional family methods and a good catch is now seen to be someone working in IT, whereas before it used to be accountancy or law. This is a good time to be a geek in India! You get the money and your pick of the gene pool!

To understand the jargon used in matchmaking in India you need to know that a "well-settled family" means upper-middle class; and a "simple woman" means no partying !

Anupam Mittal the co-founder of Shaadi.com estimates the size of India's matrimony industry at close to $20 billion. So clearly this is big business. The matchmaking alone, without the actual wedding, gifts and parties is worth around $300 million. A middle-class family of a bride will spend generally over $15,000 on the wedding, which is 4 x the annual per capita GDP in India's.

Mittal started his company in 1997 after a fortuitous meeting with a traditional matchmaker in Bombay. "I got very intrigued by what he did, and very soon it got me thinking - by God, the choice for a life partner is determined by how much weight this guy can carry and how far he can carry it."

Initially the online portal was used more by expatriates, but now approximately 70% of Shaadi.com customers come from India with the rest from the U.S., Australia, Britain and the Gulf. However, less than 5% of India's population is currently online, which means there is enormous scope for growth. Mittal, is busy opening more storefronts and who can blame him.

Shaadi.com obviously has competitors, one in particular BharatMatrimony.com in southern India started in the U.S. in the late 1990s. Its founder Murugavel Janakiraman used to hand out fliers advertising his portal at South Asian events. He moved to Chennai in 2004 and has recently built new headquarters there.

With 64% of the Indian population below the age of 30 the market is strong. BaharatMatrimony has 63 walk-in centres in India, mainly in the south, and plans to increase this number to 300 over the next 18 months. Shaadi.com has plans to add up to 400 centres over the next 2 years. Together the sites claim over 700,000 "success stories".


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