Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Matrimony.com Q2 FY25 Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this call is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Abhishek Banerjee from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hello everyone. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I welcome you to the Q2 FY25 earnings call of Matrimony.com. Re presenting the company we have, Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman, MD and CEO, and Mr. Sushanth Pai, CFO. Thank you for the opportunity to host this call. Over to you, Mr. Janakiraman, for your opening remarks.
Okay. Thank you, Abhishek Banerjee. Good evening, everyone. In Q2, due to seasonality, we had a decline both on quarter-on-quarter basis and year-on-year basis. While we had two consecutive challenging quarters, things have started progressing in the right direction. The first thing is the profiles have started to bounce back. We're having a good increase in profiles. Coinciding with the massive upcoming wedding season where over 4 million people are expected to tie the knot, we launched a 360-degree Great Indian Matchmaking Fest commercial across India that are giving special benefits to our paid users like discounts from over 200-plus brands. We also started seeing uptake in the first payment. Due to two quarters of decline, renewal may take one more quarter. We see renewal payments to bounce back from Q4 onwards. The second, Anil Kapoor, as a brand ambassador to promote community-based matrimony sites.
We are strengthening our offerings and the processes to increase the momentum in the coming quarter. Not to state that, we have launched the following offerings. We launched app Luv.com, Luv.com, in the matchmaking space to address next-generation serious relationships. The offering will focus on the theme of "Love Before Marriage," that is, building a clear differentiation and addressing the market opportunities in India. We intend to monitor this a couple of quarters down the line. We're also experimenting a commission-based model in the wedding services under a brand called "Make My Wedding" in Chennai. This is designed to connect customers with the set of curated, experienced vendors in the initial stage and offering exclusive deals and support through a dedicated relationship manager.
Whether the customer is looking to get married, whether looking for a single service or range of services, they need to pay a subscription fee to avail the services. Our relationship manager will understand the requirements, handle the setup with the service provider, that when the customer is interested, they also get a better deal. We also get a commission from the service providers. This service is being piloted in Chennai, and apart from the discount and getting the service from the trusted and reliable service provider, the customer also gets special discounts on the shopping from the top brands. We already piloted the top brands in Chennai, including brands like GRTs, to get a special discount on the jewelry shopping. We launched a new line of business called ManyJobs.com to focus exclusively on frontline and entry-level jobs.
The initial launch completed for the Tamil Nadu market in both English and vernacular. The initial stage will build the ecosystem to get traction in Tamil Nadu. We need to keep this free till we reach a critical benchmark of acceptance success. So this job portal is a sort of India's first grey-collar job portal and focusing exclusively on the frontline and entry-level jobs. And then the focus is only on Tamil Nadu at this point in time. We are in the process of launching a business in the area of wedding loans. The customer-first alternative lending platform, creating an industry-first dedicated category for facilitating wedding loans in collaboration with the leading institution. This product will be launched during this month.
I'm also excited to do and proud to state that Matrimony.com has officially been certified a great place to work by an assessment conducted by Great Place to Work India. Based on the feedback received from all our associates, this recognition reflects our commitment to fostering a culture of trust, respect, and collaboration, complemented by dedication and contribution of leaders and all our associates. Now, coming to the results, in Q2, due to the reasons already explained, we actually had a billing of INR 111 crores, a decline of 5.5% quarter-over-quarter and 5.2% year-on-year. Revenue at INR 115.5 crores, a decline of 4.2% quarter-over-quarter and 5.5% year-on-year. The key highlights for the matchmaking business for Q2 are as follows. The billing at INR 109.9 crores, a decline of 5.5% quarter-over-quarter and 4.3% year-on-year. Revenue at INR 114.3 crores, a decline of 3.7% quarter-over-quarter and 4.1% year-on-year.
We added 2.4 lakh paid subscriptions during the quarter, a decline of 6.4% quarter-over-quarter and 4.9% year-on-year. Lately, for the matchmaking business, it has been sluggish both on a quarter-over-quarter and year-on-year basis. We created about 30,600 plus success stories. Now, coming to the marriage services business and other businesses, which includes investment in Make My Wedding and other initiatives, the billing was at INR 1.18 crores, a decline of 2.3% quarter-over-quarter and 47.6% year-on-year. Revenue was INR 1.24 crores, a decline of 37.2% quarter-over-quarter and 49.5% year-on-year. Loss in the quarter was INR 3.64 crores as compared to losses of INR 2.21 crores in Q1 of FY25. Losses increased mainly due to the investment in the launch of new initiatives. On the billing and revenue outlook for Q3, the matchmaking billing expected to come back to the growth levels in Q3.
However, there will be a revenue decline due to the muted billing growth in Q2. In Q4, we expect both billing and revenue growth to move to a better level. Marriage services are expected to be at a similar level of Q2. Now, let me pass on to Sushanth to comment on the Q2 profit highlights. Sushanth, over to you.
Thanks, Murugavel. Our EBITDA margin for the matchmaking business in Q2 is at 22.6%, same as in Q1, and increased as compared to 21.3% a year ago. Marketing expenses for matchmaking in Q2 is at INR 45.2 crores as compared to INR 47.1 crores in Q1 and INR 46.1 crores a year ago. So you have observed we have optimized the marketing expenses a bit in this quarter. Excluding marketing expenses, our margins in the matchmaking business are at 62%, same as in Q1 and 60% a year ago. On a consolidated basis, our EBITDA margins in Q2 are at 15.2% compared to 16.7% in Q1 and 15.1% a year ago. Tax rate in the quarter is at 23.3%. Profit after tax is at INR 13.2 crores, a decline of 5.8% quarter-on-quarter and growth of 5% year-on-year.
Share of Q2 loss from Astro-Vision, which is our associate company, is INR 3.5 lakhs. Our cash balance is at INR 379 crores, declining slightly as compared to Q1 due to the dividend payout. ROCE annualized is at about 13%. On the outlook for Q3 margins, we expect the profit after tax to be lower than the levels of Q3 of last year due to the investments in the new areas. I would like to end with a customary Safe Harbor statement. Certain statements during this call could be forward-looking statements on our business. These involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update any such forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the company unless it is required by law.
We can now open the floor for Q&A.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for the moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Rushabh Shah from Buglerock PMS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible?
Yes, you are audible.
Yeah. Question from my side. So since you were spending more in the non-South markets for the expansion purpose, so how have you benefited in the terms of revenue and what are your further expansion plans?
Okay. Thank you, Rushabh Shah. Actually, so we now started investing now because last week we've seen that we're not that much on the North India, and once again, we started investing. We launched a Great Indian Matchmaking Fest, the campaign in North India. We also taken Anil Kapoor as a brand ambassador pretty much for the North and Western markets. So we intend to invest again in the North India market in particular. So in spite of we see that the market where that overall the advertising spend has come down, and we also did not invest much in the market for the last couple of quarters.
And going to the wedding season, we see that from now to March, there are four million weddings taking place, and we intend to cover that wedding season and also that we realize that we started investing in the Northern market. We also see the opportunity in the community-based matrimony set, that the reason we got Anil Kapoor as a brand ambassador, so going forward, we intend to invest in the North.
Sir, what I understand from this industry is more the marketing spend, more you are competitive, and more you are there in the industry. So is it about the survival of the fittest? Like who can spend more and who can create more brand image in the eyes of people?
The thing is that definitely in this category, we've seen that a couple of years ago, not a couple of years ago, we've seen that increase in marketing spend much more than what was warranted. Lately we've seen that some other market and some other players, that is the marketing spend has come down. It's something with the market per se, reducing the marketing spend, but also players per se. Then the number three player, they're sadly now kind of reducing marketing spend. And number two player, again, they've been advertising in this market. Some other markets are investing heavily. And we realize that the competition continues to be there while it's not that all the players are advertising. So in a way that, as I said in the past, the high marketing spend may not continue for long term. It's already seen happening in one of the players.
We continue to maintain a certain threshold as a leader in the category. So we may have seen progress. We hope these things may get optimized. Having said that, even marketing spend, it cannot go beyond a certain limit. There's no point in spending beyond a certain threshold. However, as a leader, we need to maintain a certain level of visibility and to ensure that brands have sufficient reach and the brand visibility. So that's the way that the media has been moving today, not only TV, but other media also, the media shift has been happening. So you have to have the presence in various mediums. So yes, there's an increase in marketing spend happening in the category because of the other players spending the money. If that comes down, we also may reduce the marketing spend.
Okay. So my next question is the elite or premium matrimony. Since those are a completely different type of plans we have with more artwork, so do we have any plans to grow that particular business since it's a very small but very profitable kind of business for us?
Yeah. You're absolutely right. So you may know that today we have a presence in various airports. We are the first company to set up exclusive experience centers in the various airports. Today, we have presence in eight airports across India for EliteMatrimony. And we definitely are looking at EliteMatrimony as rightly stated. The premium segment is an opportunity, though it's small at this point in time. So we intend to focus, we intend to grow the business as well. So the reasons for setting up our EliteMatrimony experience center in various airports to create the enhanced visibility for EliteMatrimony. So that I've been doing it, so.
Okay. Okay. And my next question is, do customers who do not find their match and are in the mid type of services, not in the elite, not in the below type of services, in the mid segment, move up the service?
No, the thing is that for us that Rushabh is that it's selling the right package to the customer, what is the appropriate package to the customer. So not all the customers can move up. The EliteMatrimony intended for the rich and affluent, for elite. If someone not found a life partner in the mainstream package, the lower package doesn't need to move to elite. EliteMatrimony needs to have a certain level of net worth or certain criteria to be part of EliteMatrimony. So our intent has always been, our approach has always been selling the right package to the customer. So the customer can use the online package. We have to put those customers on the online package. Some customers need the assistance or better or faster. The matchmaking may recommend assisted matchmaking service. It's not that people move up.
It's based on their socioeconomic status and what kind of product they need.
Okay. Sure. Thank you. I'll join back in a bit.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Madhur Rathi from Counter Cyclical Investments. Please go ahead.
Sir, thank you for that opportunity. Sir, I wanted to understand on our marriage services business. Sir, we have been making constantly losses, and our revenue has kind of flattened. I guess you mentioned that it will grow going forward. Sir, sometimes I understand when can our losses reduce or if we have any plans for making the segment profitable? And similarly, on the revenue or the revenue side, sir, what kind of growth can we expect from the segment over the next two to three years?
Sorry, so my line was not clear. Are you asking about wedding services?
Are you, sir? I'm asking about the marriage services segment.
Sorry for interrupting you, sir. Your voice is not clear. Can you speak a little louder?
The question was about marriage services, when you expect to think. If that question is right, Madhur, let me explain. I hope that is your question. So wedding services, so now we have a WeddingBazaar. It's there with a marketplace model. And while that is at a certain level, and we see that business has a certain level of potential. But we are looking at the commission-based model. We believe that can be a better opportunity. The second, we are piloting in Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, and Chennai. So basically, instead of the WeddingBazaar model where we generate the lead and pass on to the vendor and get a subscription from the vendor, we are looking at getting a commission from the vendor. So that's the model we are piloting. We think that may be a better model. Again, however, it's still in the early stages.
We want to try it out and see whether we could be able to make it successful. So we are confident about the pivot to this model. We believe we're able to make it successful. So probably a better update in the coming quarters, and if this business takes off, then we could be able to reduce the losses and also move to a better growth in wedding services.
Okay. So as I understand, sir, this business seems much more lucrative from our main business, and it looks like it can grow much faster. So on the growth front, at what level can we expect at least a breakeven from this commission? Or if you can just help us understand how are we planning? Because I guess in our investor presentation, we have highlighted that we have a network of 200,000 vendors. So if you could just help us understand how can this become profitable, as well as what kind of revenue growth can we expect going forward over the next two to three years from this segment?
Yeah. See, the wedding services is very useful. If you're able to get the product market right, Make My Wedding where you facilitate wedding services, where you get the money from the customer who also comes to the vendor, it just picks up. If you're able to make it right, then obviously we may see a better growth. However, as I said, still in the very early stage. We've just been piloting for the last month or so. So too early to comment on that. Again, we told you, it is very minuscule at this point in the world of the matrimony option compared to talking about wedding industry. And the next four months alone, the expectation will be that INR 3 lakh crores will be spent on wedding-related services. So that's a massive opportunity.
However, we have to get the current model of WeddingBazaar seems to be sort of having certain challenges. We are now piloting this model. Let's see how it progresses. If we have progresses, the growth can be much better. However, it's still too early to comment on this one.
Okay. So just a final question from my side. Sir, so we are currently doing a buyback. So why are we doing a buyback at such a premium? And sir, there was an opportunity to do a buyback before, I guess, 30th of September, where we could have got the exemption benefit, but even that has not. So I'm trying to understand why didn't we deploy this capital much more efficiently than right now doing a buyback?
Basically, it creates a barrier to only one shareholder, and so this was a second buyback, and we discussed the board, and we thought it's better to have a certain premium, and it was a board decision on the buyback. Again, as I said, it's one of the ways to reward the shareholders.
Okay. Sir, thank you so much and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mr. Abhishek Banerjee. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Thanks. So in the matchmaking services business, the billing number growth has still been subdued. Though your commentary kind of suggested that there are going to be a lot more weddings over the next few months. So how do you kind of correlate those two data points?
Yeah. Basically, Abhishek, so we are just focusing on the new model of wedding services. That's where the focus is, so we want to cut down the losses in the other form of wedding services in order to focus on the native wedding. So this model, again, we told you, we're just kind of piloting it only in Tamil Nadu. We just want to get the product right and offering right before you take it to other markets. The reason for that is because of the way they're optimizing the cost, optimizing certain things, so we want to run the wedding services at a certain level and drive the, sorry, the existing business at a certain level and try to achieve a breakeven in profitability and investing in the new offerings in the wedding services. So that was the reason we said.
Talking about matchmaking services, there also.
Matchmaking. Oh, matchmaking. Okay. Sorry, I thought you mentioned the wedding services. So matchmaking, what we've seen that the last couple of quarters, in some other markets, particularly in India, that there's a prolonged no auspicious days for weddings, particularly markets like in South, some other markets. So that was the reason. We also saw that post the COVID, where the spiking profile happened, after that, some subdued in terms of profile growth. However, as we speak, the things have started to bounce back. The profile has started growing, and also wedding season has started. And we also made some changes in the way we do things. So the good thing is that the profiles have bounced back. And fresh payment, even the month of October, there's an increase in the fresh payment. Even the month of November, as you speak, there's an increase in the first-time payment.
But the renewal may take us one more quarter because since the other two quarters have declined, it may take one more quarter to bounce back. So while this quarter, it may move to the growth level, it still may be very, very marginal. But starting Q4, we see that both fresh and renewal that moves up, we move to the growth levels in Q4, both on billing level and renewal level. We believe that, I think, the first of this thing that happened in the history of matrimony. We hope we don't get into any degrowth in the end score. I think that's where we are strategizing and working our thing. So we also exhibited new ideas, new things. I believe we are on the right path. I think we'll be starting now, we'll be getting to the growth objective.
Got it, but sir, just to understand, what kind of volume and what kind of realization growth are we expecting going ahead?
We may expect some increase in ARPU slightly, possibly because of the Q4 onwards. And the volume may also increase. But we are not to do the number at this point in time. Again, we have to wait and see how the whole thing will work out. But definitely, this outlook is for us, yeah, definitely increasing both in ARPU as well as volume.
It is in the volume leg that we can assume, right? That is your.
That is volume growth. As we are both grow, we expect the volume growth also. We also expect some, maybe, some margin increase in ARPU also may happen.
Got it. But sir, how does that, I mean, given you are also extending your presence in northern markets, how do you expect suddenly to increase ARPU on top of that? So are there any additional services that you are going to be offering within matchmaking? How will you manage to do this?
See, one thing is about online matchmaking. We also have the premium services. We have a premium service, the elite service, and also Q4 normally is a good quarter, so the combination of the increase in the premium services, so we expect there will be some margin increase, but mostly it will come from the volume growth.
Okay. Sir, one of your competitors seems to be doing slightly worse off because of whatever fallout with their backers and all. Do you really see any consolidation happening from that side?
No, we don't see anything at this point in time. But if at all, any opportunity, we'll evaluate. But we don't see anything at this point in time.
Understood. Now, if I come to the wedding services side of the business, there are startups which have gotten into it, and they seem to have found a product market fit of some sort. Is there anything that they're learning from there? So is our new strategy kind of based on that, or is it something we are trying on an experimental basis?
See, the category is, Abhishek, large enough. So different models can evolve. So at this point in time, we initially began with the market-based model. Now we are thinking on the commission-based model. So when the category is large enough, different models may evolve. But based on our experience, based on that large number, based on what we were studying, we at this point in time, we think this is the model we want to go ahead with. And so let's see how it actually evolves.
Okay. And just one last question. This one is on the new business that you have started in the employment space. So that is also kind of taking on one of your competitors' head on. And that company has notoriously been increasing their ad spend in the last couple of years. So any reason why you are suddenly getting aggressive on this? Is this a parking strategy, or is it something that you really believe can become a growth driver for you in the future?
No, we definitely think it can be a growth driver for the long run because we've been in the business for almost two decades. We understand the consumer segment fairly well. We have launched it internally as a job portal. So we may have launched sort of the first of this kind. It's focused on frontline and entry-level jobs. So we are keeping these at this point in time limited only to Tamil Nadu because we see that most of the openings, most of the applicants, it's pretty much in that segment, frontline and entry-level jobs. We are trying to be bilingual. We want to try it on one market.
We are in a way competing with any player in this space. So we are not competing with other established players. We are just focusing on the one segment of the frontline and entry-level sort of grey-collar jobs. That's our focus.
So again, we want to keep it at this point in time to free, and we are getting a decent number of resumes on a daily basis. And once we reach a certain threshold based on the acceptance, then we may intend to monetize and take it to other markets. Timing, it's more of we saw an opportunity, keeping a long-term outlook of opportunity in India, and based on our experience, we feel there's an opportunity in this space.
Okay. Thank you so much. I'll get back in touch with you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Darshan Shah from Multi-Act Equity Consultancy Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So my question is regarding this comment that you made with respect to profit for the next quarter. So you mentioned that the profit could be lower next quarter. So just wanted to understand, this is because of certain investments that we are doing, and would they be in the existing segment, or it would be in the new segment?
So it's a combination of both. So because of the recent, the profit will slightly less on account of one is that we are billing the growth, the degrowth in Q2. That will transition further. Billing in Q3 may move up, but the revenue will be down on account of the lower billing in Q2. Plus, some of the new initiatives launched, that new initiative may call for some investment. So plus also the Q3, the wedding season has started. So there will be some increase in marketing on our core business also. The combination of some increase in marketing in the core business, plus also investment in new business, it may lead to some drop in the revenue of comparatively earlier years. So however, we are making investment.
We expect that the Q4 where things will move back and the revenue will move up and billing will move up. So the profit also starts more from Q4 onwards.
Okay. And with respect to the Google, so there was this benefit that we were supposed to get, right, around 3 percentage points. So when should we see that kind of flowing through?
Actually, we are not at this point of time. The thing is, the cost of Google at this point of time.
Sorry? Sorry, I missed that.
Am I audible?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think what you're referring to is that last year we had Google, right? And this year we don't have. The benefit has not come. See, this year what has happened is, like Murugavel described, Q2 has been a muted quarter. There has been billing fall. And in this year, Q1 also had an unusual number of inauspicious days. So both put together, the Q1 billing also fell. Otherwise, usually Q1 is a strong quarter for us. So that created a lower revenue in Q2. And therefore, the overall PAT has come down. As compared to our other, the Google benefit has not come back to us. So we believe that as we go along, when things bounce back, we are seeing, like we said, the fresh subs coming back, the renewal may bounce back in Q4.
With all of these new initiatives with focus on personalized services, creating this Great Indian Matchmaking Fest, all this put together in Q4, we believe that some effect of the profit should come back.
Got it. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rushabh Shah from Buglerock PMS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So since you are asking me a question, so what is it?
Sorry for interrupting you, sir. Your voice is not clear. Could you speak loud?
Is it right now?
No, sir.
Can you speak a little louder? Yeah.
Yeah.
That's right. Okay. Sir, what are your criteria for EliteMatrimony? Suppose a person wants to show his profile on the EliteMatrimony. So is there a huge screening process or anyone can be on the EliteMatrimony profile?
No, no. Not anyone can be EliteMatrimony. You have to be elite to be part of EliteMatrimony, based on network or income above a certain threshold or based on your education or professions. Only meeting certain criteria, you can be part of EliteMatrimony. It's a private database. It's a confidential database. It's sort of relationship. So paying money doesn't get you the elite.
Okay. One question on the profile safety is one of the most important things for us in the matrimony platform because of a lot of scams related to this. What are we doing on those fronts, like leaked profiles getting leaked, fake profiles, and what are we doing?
No, it's not elite profiles. By the way, elite is private and all. We are not in the elite profile.
Not just talking about the EliteMatrimony, in general, sir.
In terms of, yeah, there is a thing about while there are security measures where people need to know ID-verified profiles are there and each and every profile goes through OTP mechanism. However, there are some challenges. That's a fact. So there are some people misuse the photos sometimes, or there are scammers try to use the photo to create a profile and try to scam people. But when we get into millions of profiles, there are six to seven million people added to a platform. The number of such things are very minuscule. However, as a brand, you need to be a trusted player, leading player, being a pioneer in this space. We need to continue to evolve and figure out ways to do that while continuing to evolve. But still, there are some challenges at this point in time.
In fact, a year before, we got Vidya Balan as a brand ambassador to educate people on these online matrimony scams. So our number of those is small, minuscule. However, it's a concern. It's one of the challenges the industry is grappling with. So there's not only online matrimony. The various forms of online industry are facing various forms of fraud. So there are challenges. Our category is about this kind of some fraud and all the things. We need to figure it out. I'm sure as we progress, we could be able to figure out the ways to address these users. Other challenges, we're not only the profiles are created by individuals. There are parents and relatives also use the profile. We're not just created by self or almost founding a person. There are some challenges. We continue to educate.
We also continue to evolve and figure out how to completely stop, but at this point, there is no foolproof mechanism to address this one, so our message will take it's about users being diligent about it, and while we are educating, we will communicate to people that don't send money to any stranger for whatever reason, but still, some people end up in getting duped and all that, so yeah, fraud is one of the challenges, so small, but it's an interesting problem that we need to address it.
Yeah. Right. So my next question is, what after someone has got married on matrimony? So do you meet with them or do you call them for their feedbacks? And how do you improve on the negative ones?
No, we have definitely that we constantly get feedback from customers. Customers also give feedback to us. The product improvement is continuous process. Service improvement ongoing basis. That's happened regularly. We also reach out to people who are getting married to us. Yeah, we get feedback.
So, any of the negative feedback, would you like to say if you've got and you've corrected them?
Oh, no. That's always the thing. See, we are dealing with millions of users. And the particular service category, we are not offering any product. So definitely, there are ongoing feedback. So on the product side and how to that's the ongoing thing. So there's nothing one specific I can say. That is ongoing suggestion, ongoing improvement happening because we are talking about dealing with millions of users.
So my next question is, we had stated in 2022 that the WeddingBazaar will be a 100-crore business in the next three to four years. So are we on that path? And how far are we from that?
No. As you told me, we are trying out a new model. So it depends on how successful the new model is going to evolve into. So at this point in time, we are piloting it two-yearly. If the business picks up again, we are talking about a very large industry. And if we become successful, yeah, we can achieve it. But it depends on how well we execute and how well the people are accepting this opportunity. And so it all depends. But we believe there's a big opportunity. But we have to execute well and ensure that this opportunity when we launch becomes highly successful.
So my last question is, as you said, you are in this business for a couple of decades. So how has the transition been in the online marriages in the past, let's say, eight to nine years? Have people been more accepting to do a marriage online, which they didn't think about it before?
No. Absolutely. So today, online matrimony is one of the most preferred sources of finding life partners for anybody who is looking at getting married. So the industry has been more than two decades, and it's well accepted and the most preferred method of finding life partners. So that has already happened.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Amit Saxena, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. So if I understand that we have a market share, we are market leaders, and we have a market share of 50%, 60% in India. But when it comes to the regional split, would you like to share the, I would like to know what kind of market share we have regionally. So I understand in the south, we are at the top, but probably in the north, we are weaker. So can you give us the sense of the market share in the region, in the four regions?
It is very difficult. Definitely, we have a very high market share in the south, and definitely our leader in the west as well as in the east. Very difficult to quantify the level of leadership in the west and east. But now, definitely, one of the players we need to definitely catch up. That is the reason now we have kind of once again started to invest in the North Indian market. As I said, we got Anil Kapoor, the brand ambassador for Community Matrimony, and we also started investing again for the Great Indian - for the upcoming wedding season, we launched a Great Indian Matchmaking Fest. So we hope that going forward with the focus on the North Indian market with both our Community Matrimony as well as our Bharat Matrimony, we believe that we could increase the market share in North India.
So by this point in time, what are the exact questions? Yeah. One thing, we definitely have the one market. We need to catch up, but we hope we can make inroads in the North Indian market.
So related to that, the marketing expense that you do on a yearly basis, which probably ranges from INR 150 to INR 80-INR 100 crores with the annual mandate, is it right to assume that a larger portion of that goes to the North Indian market where you want to capture? Should that reasoning be correct?
No, it's not. North is definitely an expensive market. There are some portions go in the North Indian market. Again, the marketing spend also sometimes depends on the seasonality. We also took some adjustments. It's not a static investment of so much goes to North India. We just, within the marketing thing, we try to. Depends on seasonality, depends on opportunity. We do some kind of adjustment in the marketing campaign. The last couple of years in the North Indian market. Now we see the time to invest in the North Indian market, so those kind of adjustments we do, and again, our budget is broad-based across India, so not only goes to the North Indian market. Yeah. We do spend some amount of money in the North Indian market, but North India is a quite expensive market also, and GECs are quite expensive. Yeah. It depends on the region.
It depends on the opportunity in the market and it depends on the media. Yeah. The budget gets allocated accordingly, so we don't have any sort of proportional allocation, okay, this much budget for all those things. We try to juggle all the marketing spend according to the opportunity, according to the seasonality also.
Okay. Sir, on the ATV, the average transaction will be which I report roughly will be 4,500 per year. So is it a blended? I understand it is a blended average. But you do say our new initiatives like Jodii, which is within ATV, will be much, much lower or EliteMatrimony, which will be much, much higher than the average. So is it right to assume that the blended average is 4,500 for our basis of the starting product and it's not kind of blended because of the other products like EliteMatrimony or Jodii because they are very different price points?
So it is blended. It's a blended because obviously, EliteMatrimony and all is a small part of our revenue. So it's a blended. So it's a combination of all the packages. Yeah.
But monthly, will the three or six months package in the normal space of which we have?
What I wanted to ask is that do Jodii or EliteMatrimony distort over this average number? I mean, are they as big that they can distort the average number?
No, no. The elite is, yeah, a smaller business. So it doesn't distort the number. No, there is a proportion of elite as well.
Yeah. There's a proportion of elite. There's a proportion of assisted as well, so which are higher ARPU. So at this point, I've already seen blended, including Jodii, online, assisted, elite. So the ARPU increases if the premium services goes up, the ARPU increases. The bottom of the pyramid increases, the ARPU goes down also. It depends on which segment of the category grows. So accordingly, ARPU may move up or move down also.
Okay. One last question from my side. So if we see the last five-year trend, we do see that the number of users are going up probably from 7.5 lakhs five years ago to probably 10 lakhs now on a yearly basis. But our average transaction value has been more or less stable. So is it right to assume that, I mean, we don't have much pricing power on the average transaction value given the kind of inflation we see going on in the last five years? We don't see any improvement there. So do we lack the pricing power there?
No, basically, I think we have to see it differently because it was not the case five years ago with Jodii or Jodii, which is priced very low. So we didn't have that offering. So if we include Jodii, obviously, that's with a very low price very low. So the blended ARPU also includes Jodii as well. So if you had to include Jodii, obviously, the ARPU would be better. But if you want to think the blend of all these factors includes Elite to Jodii and everything, that's the reason we got ATV at this level. So it's not that, yes. Obviously, one thing is to look at that we also not increase the price in some other segments. So we try to, in some segments, we try to sell it at a different price.
So yes, today, online is operating at a certain ARPU, which we have not increased the price for some time, which is right. But however, we see the opportunity in the premium segment, and that has been going up. So we may achieve progress. We may increase the price. In the last couple of years, we have not done much on the price. We may look into whether there's scope to fine-tune the price also.
Okay. Thank you very much for your answers, sir.
Thank you, Amit. Appreciate it.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments.
Thank you, ICICI Securities, for hosting this call. If you have any further questions, you can write to us. Have a good day.
Thank you so much. Look forward to coming to the next quarter. Thank you so much.
On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.