In the age of Tinder and Woo, a traditional matrimonial website is still raking in big bucks.
In the nine months since Matrimony.com listed on the Indian stock exchanges, India’s oldest online matchmaking company has seen its quarterly profits increase by at least 60% year-on-year.
On April 04, the Chennai-headquartered company said it had recorded a profit of Rs16.6 crore ($2.4 million) in the January-March 2018 quarter, 64.3% higher than the same period last year.
Matrimony.com gets nearly 95% of its revenue from online matchmaking through its websites like bharatmatrimony.com, communitymatrimony.com, and elitematrimony.com, while the rest comes from allied services like wedding photography, catering, and venue booking services.
The company’s profits are growing sharply at a time when most internet businesses in India are struggling to even reach breakeven point. For instance, e-commerce major Flipkart had a loss of over Rs24,000 crore in the year ended March 2017, from nearly Rs10,000 crore a year ago, and online ride-hailing firm Ola’s loss during fiscal 2017 stood at nearly Rs2,313 crore.
Despite the growing popularity of dating apps in India, users are not losing interest in online matrimonial portals. Matrimony.com saw nearly one million people sign up for its matchmaking services during the January-March 2018 quarter. In the previous quarter, 950,000 new users had signed up.
Since 2006, when it started tracking the data, the company has had over 26 million users, it said.
And over 60% of the new profiles created on Matrimony.com during January-March 2018 were by prospective brides and grooms themselves, while parent-created profiles accounted for 17% and siblings made another 23%.