Bangalore: Online Matrimonial websites are prospering at present, as revealed by T.E. Narasimhan and Swati Garg, in a Business Standard article. The article states how such websites are booming because of an increasing number of people becoming internet savvy.

The Indian Wedding Segment is estimated to be around $400 billion, with an estimated growth rate of 20 percent, but is still behind China in this respect. However, only 10 percent of this segment is organized. Anupam Mittal, Founder and CEO of Shaadi.com, said that this small percentage indicates opportunity for this segment to grow in the future.The Indian Wedding Segment is estimated to be around $400 billion, with an estimated growth rate of 20 percent, but is still behind China in this respect. However, only 10 percent of this segment is organized. Anupam Mittal, Founder and CEO of Shaadi.com, said that this small percentage indicates opportunity for this segment to grow in the future.

The article states how Yahoo, an internet titan, sold its shares at more than double the amount it had paid for in buying the shares of Bharat Matrimony, thus increasing the value of Bharat Matrimony to 900 crores. This also indicates that online marriages are going to be the next big thing in the internet domain. Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and CEO of Bharat Matrimony, said that the phenomenal success of Bharat Matrimony came as a surprise to him because his venture had a very humble beginning during the dot com boom. At the time, Janakiraman had no definite business model or mentor in mind and had to rely on emails and word-of-mouth publicity for Bharat Matrimony. Thus, Bharat Matrimony became a pioneer then and is a leader now in this field, with 40 percent of the market share, followed by Shaadi.com at 35 percent and Jeevansathi.com at 20 percent. This industry had gained prominence in 1998, when private Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were free to charge for their online services as per the guidelines of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

95 percent of the revenue in this sector is generated through subscriptions and not advertisements. Users of this service can avail various packages as per their needs. Users can look up profiles on such websites for free but need to subscribe to be able to get detailed profile information. The factor that drives this promising sector is its credibility, which is absent in the matrimonial of newspapers, as said by Rohit Manghnani, Business Head of Jeevansathi.com. While, Bharat Matrimony has tied up with LinkedIn, other online matrimonial take the help of AC Nielsen to assure users of genuine profiles.

According to Janakiraman, the toughest challenge of his venture was making people belive in the authenticity of the user profiles on the web. It was also about providing users with comfort and choice in searching for their life-partners. Currently, the online matrimonial industry is growing at a rate of 25 percent, thus, indicating a bright future. Since, the number of males in the country is more than that of females; it comes as no surprise that 73 percent of matrimonial sites users are men.