Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Matrimony.com Q4 FY 22 conference call hosted by IIFL Securities Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Saurav Dhirani from IIFL Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, Mike. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Apologies for the slight delay in starting and thanks for joining us today on the Q4 fiscal 2022 earnings call of Matrimony.com Limited. On behalf of IIFL Securities, I would like to thank the management of Matrimony.com for giving us the opportunity to host this earnings call. Today we have with us from the management Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman, Chairman and Managing Director, and Mr. Sushant Pai, Chief Financial Officer. With that, I will hand over the call to Mr. Murugavel, sir, to take the proceedings forward. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Saurav. Good evening, everyone. I hope all of you are continuing to stay safe and healthy. When we started last year, the second wave of the pandemic caused a grave situation to people and business. Apart from the people-centricity, we had a relentless execution of our strategy through our committed leadership and passionate associates. We are all working towards our core purpose of helping people to find their right life partner. The focus and our purpose helps us to minimize our impact, and we could achieve the desired outcomes. Happy to state that we achieved a 15% revenue growth in FY 2022 and a 31.4% EBITDA growth, which we believe are a good outcome in these situations.
If you could exclude the loss of pre-wedding wedding services of INR 9 crore, the profit would have been 61 crore for at the enterprise level. I consider our performance and we believe that the intrinsic value of Matrimony.com doesn't reflect the current share price doesn't reflect the intrinsic value of Matrimony.com. While we announce that dividend and we're also announcing the buyback, which Sushant will be sharing. However, we believe that the growth momentum in the FY 2022 will continue, it will continue to get better. In FY 2022, we have done lot of significant contribution in terms of business and the offerings to our customers and to our stakeholders.
Some of the key milestones for the year are as follows: We launched Jodii, a new offering, for people who are non-degree holders. Today, we are offering this service in 10 vernacular languages, and at affordable price and at a simple user interface. We launched a unique acceptable matches feature to help members' profile to be seen and contacted only by the relevant matches. The launch of a video profile feature to help customer who want to go beyond words and picture to express themselves. The launch of Bangladesh operation and acquisition of ShaadiSaga to scale up our presence in wedding services. We successfully integrated ShaadiSaga into WeddingBazaar. Today, WeddingBazaar is India's largest wedding services marketplace. With Mandap.com and WeddingBazaar.com, we have more than 1 lakh vendor.
We expect that growth momentum of WeddingBazaar to further improve. The social initiative campaign what we launched along with the MS Dhoni, that is the Pehle Padhai Phir Shaadi. We are looking at helping the girls in Rajasthan to choose education over marriage. That's our social initiatives that we launched in FY 2022. We launched a new HRMS system partnered with PeopleStrong and the migration to AWS to host our services which help us to execute and scale faster. While this will add some costs on OpEx and online, but however, in the long run, which help us to, you know, execute faster.
The depreciation in the coming years comes down, but not in this year, but in one or two years down the line. Let me come to the results in Q4. On a consolidated basis, we achieved INR 115.1 crore in billing, which is a 7.9% year-on-year growth. Our revenue were INR 110.6 crore, which is 9.4% year-on-year growth. For the full- year, we achieved INR 434.4 crore of billing, which is a growth of 12.9%. Revenue for the full- year was INR 434.5 crore, which is a good 15% growth. The key highlights for the matchmaking business are as follows.
In quarter four, the billing was INR 113.2 crore, a growth of 6.7% quarter-over-quarter and 6.7% year-on-year. Revenue at INR 109.1 crore, a growth of 1.8% quarter-over-quarter and 8.4% year-on-year. For the full- year, the billing were at INR 430 crore, a growth of 12.2%. Revenue at INR 430.4 crore, a growth of 14.5%. We added 2.34 lakh paid subscriptions during the quarter, which was a growth of 8.8% quarter-over-quarter and 3.1% year-on-year. We + 8.9 lakh paid subscription during the year, which was a growth of 6.8%.
The ATV for the matchmaking business increased 3.3% year-on-year, but declined 2% quarter-over-quarter. For the full- year, the ATV increased by 5%. We continue to track the impact we create our customers. We are happy to state that we have created around 24,000 success stories in quarter four, bringing a total of 104,000 success stories for the year FY 2022. Now coming to the managed services business. Revenue was INR 1.5 crore, a growth of 209.5% year-on-year. The losses for the quarter was INR 3.1 crore compared to INR 2.9 crore in the previous quarter. For the full- year, revenue was INR 4.1 crore, a growth of 89.6%.
Losses were at similar level of FY 2021 at INR 9.6 crore. On the billing and revenue outlook for Q1. On a consolidated basis, we expect the growth momentum to continue with the billing and revenue expected to grow, double-digit growth on a year-on-year basis. The growth amount of wedding services will further increase. We expect the wedding services to grow at a triple-digit basis. However, the losses will be at a similar level. Before I conclude, I'd like to thank all our customers, employees, investors, stakeholders and partners, regulators for their continuous support. Let me pass on to Sushant to comment on the key profitability highlights. Sushant, over to you.
Yeah. Thanks, Murugavel. Our EBITDA margin for the matchmaking business in Q4 is at 22.7% as compared to 24.5% in Q3 and 23.4% a year ago. For the full- year, EBITDA margins for the matchmaking business was at 26% as compared to 23.9% in FY 2021. Marketing expenses are at INR 42.7 crore as compared to 41.6 crore in quarter three. Marketing expenses for the full- year was at INR 161 crore as compared to INR 137 crore in FY 2021. Excluding marketing expenses, our margins in the matchmaking business are very robust. It's at 63% in FY 2022 as compared to 60% in FY 2021. This indicates operational efficiencies that have brought in this improvement and also due to increased revenue.
On a consolidated basis, our EBITDA margins in Q4 are at 18.1% compared to 18.6% in quarter three and 17.7% a year ago. For the full- year, our EBITDA is at INR 90 crore, which is 20.6% as compared to INR 70.6 crore in FY 2021, which is 18.6%. This is a good growth of 27.5%. Tax rate is at 25.8% for the quarter and 25.2% for the full- year. PAT, excluding MatchAstro, which is our associate company, is at INR 11.9 crore, an increase of 1.9% quarter-over-quarter and 17.3% year-over-year. Share of loss from the MatchAstro, excuse me, which is associate company, is INR 16.8 lakh.
PAT for the full- year, excluding MatchAstro, is INR 54.4 crore, which is 12.4% PAT margin as compared to 41.3 crore, which is 10.9% in FY 2021, which is again a good growth of 31.5%. Our free cash generation has been robust at INR 17 crore for the quarter and INR 60 crore for the year, and our cash balance is at INR 334 crore. On the outlook for Q1 margins, given the salary increments in the range of 8%-9% in Q1, and increase in marketing expenses in newer areas, we expect EBITDA and PAT to decrease slightly from the Q4 levels. However, this profitability will pick up from Q2 onwards. Other announcements in the quarter are as follows.
The board of directors at its meeting held on May 12th, 2022, which is today, have recommended a final dividend of 100%, which is ₹5 per equity share of par value of ₹5 each. This is subject to the approval of the shareholders. Apart from this, the board of directors, again, subject to the approval of the shareholders, have recommended a buyback of equity shares not exceeding INR 75 crores at an indicated maximum buyback price, not exceeding INR 1,150. 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 the 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's required by law. That ends our opening remarks. I'd like to pass it on to Saurabh and Mike for opening the Q&A.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you, sir.
We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question from the line of Prakash Kapadia from Anived Portfolio Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. Congrats, Murugavel on, you know, taking investors' feedback so positively and, you know, announcing buyback and signaling to the market about, you know, our valuations and the belief in the business and, you know, the ability to create wealth for shareholders. Congratulations for that. You know, couple of questions from my end. You know, are our promoters going to participate in the current buyback?
Yeah. Prakash, thank you very much, and, you know, appreciate your suggestions and the feedback, and, we definitely value all the investors and the feedback. In terms of the participation from the promoter side, no, I'm not participating. In fact, three months ago, I did buy shares from the open market.
Okay.
If I get a chance, I'll buy more. Because I truly believe.
Sure. Great.
long-term potential of Matrimony.com.
That's really good to know. You're giving an opportunity for shareholders other than promoters to benefit even more. That's actually a very good sign. Really appreciate that. You know, couple of other questions. This quarter, you know, if I look at the billing rate, it is, you know, up 8%, on a year-on-year basis and on a sequential basis around 7.2%. Just wondering, you know, am I missing something? Because, you know, we keep on reading about record weddings given unlock this summer season, wedding season is very high. In that context, is, you know, revenue growth slightly lower than expected, or is there some spillover in Q1? If you could give some sense on the revenue side.
Prakash, thank you. While we expected double-digit growth in Q4, we ended with 8%. See, the weddings are different than the matchmaking because, you know, while the weddings are in business, it's different. The weddings are in business. You know, it's continued to grow at a double-digit basis because obviously we're on a smaller base at this point of time. On the matchmaking side, you know, because people, when the people find a life partner and when the people getting married are two different things. Normally, it takes around, you know, nine months to one year or, you know, for people to find a life partner. That's average, you know, when where people stay on our Matrimony platform. Two different things.
The wedding seasonality, yes, in a way that, when more marriage happen, that it will get the people to, you know, enroll into that. That's contribute to the number of people coming into the marriage, the matchmaking platform. But both are two inter-independent things. The marriage taking place, that's not, you know, kind of corresponding increase-
Sure.
In our revenue and other things in the same quarters. A lot more number of marriages definitely, you know, kind of there's a lot more publicity. People know that, okay, they got married through Matrimony.com. They definitely increases more people coming to the platform. That's two independent things. That's what I kinda wanted to share. In terms of Q1, definitely, you know, we expect this year growth will be better than the growth what we had in the last year. Where last year growth on the matchmaking was 12.2%, we do expect this year the growth will be better than the previous year in terms of the investment behind the new opportunity, and we definitely see the momentum in the business.
Sure.
We believe that the growth will be better this year.
Understood. Lastly, you know, from my side, you know, ad spend seems slightly higher. Is it due to the slightly, you know, lower revenue growth we've seen? Or is it, you know, competitive intensity, which is where it was or maybe some increase? How do we look at that, headline number?
Marketing-wise, we'll continue to invest in the marketing. In terms of our operating cost, as said, we moved to AWS. The AWS kind of has pushed our operating cost because earlier we were hosted under the service provider where we used to buy servers, so that way it's more on the CapEx side. Now move to AWS. The benefits of moving to AWS is in the longer run, we won't need to buy servers, so it will help us in our cost going down on the depreciation. However, in the short, I believe, since we move to AWS, there'll be some increase in the operating cost. There is an increase in operation.
However, the benefits are that we could able to execute faster, able to move, you know, and drive things faster because rather than waiting for, you know, buying server and putting a procuring infrastructure. Well, in my view that we could have done this probably one or two years before. We are little late. However, finally moved to the cloud platform. It will give the flexibility in terms of on how you can able to execute things and so that way it's definitely useful for us. But yes, in the short, from now on, there'll be some increase in the cost which already we started seeing from Q4. But however, as I said, in a couple of year down the line, there are benefits certainly, depreciation.
The benefits should start coming. Understood. Thanks. I'll join back the queue if I have more questions. Congrats once again on taking these initiatives. I'll join back the queue if I have more questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Prakash. Hello, Saurav. Are you there? Hello? Hello?
We have the next question from the line of Nilesh Shah from Envision Capital.
Yeah. Hi, thank you for the opportunity and thank you so much for announcing the buyback, taking our feedback. I think it just reflects your confidence in being able to grow this business in the most capital efficient manner. If I've heard you correctly, that the promoters are not gonna be participating in this buyback, which again reflects your respect for minority shareholders.
I'm taking this opportunity to convey my . Thanks for the wonderful decision taken and best wishes for the future as well. In terms of the business, can you just kind of give, Murugavel, some more light in terms of the wedding services business? I mean, I think now, the acquisition and the integration is probably more than now, almost a year or probably a bit more than a year. Can you give some more light in terms of how is that business shaping up in terms of some more qualitative detail? Any milestones achieved or that we are likely to cross in the near future, and how is that business shaping up, please?
Yeah. Nilesh, good evening. Thank you very much. Appreciate your views. In terms of wedding services, we bought the company sometime in September. The integration just got over, so it just happened in the month of April. We successfully integrated ShaadiSaga into WeddingBazaar. Today, WeddingBazaar has become India's largest wedding service marketplace. We definitely see the good momentum in this business because definitely ShaadiSaga has brought in lot of capabilities in terms of, you know, product value delivery and some other interesting thing on the product side as well as on the service side.
With this, we are now all set for wedding services business to grow to achieve our goal of becoming a 100-crore company in three years. We see that growth momentum has been picking up. We see the business growing on a quarter-on-quarter basis, year-on-year basis. Year-on-year basis, definitely grow at a triple-digit basis. In Q4, we've done that close to INR 10 crore and the business continues to grow. In terms of the integration just got over. The put together listing-wise, we have more than 1,000 listings. That makes us India's largest wedding service marketplace. This integration just got over. The business was bought only in the month of September.
It took six months for us to integrate things to become a single entity. ShaadiSaga ceased to exist. Now, it's become integrated both the business. We are now going to operate only one name on wedding services. It's going to be WeddingBazaar.com. We have Mandap.com, so yeah.
Okay.
Nilesh, hope that answers your question.
Just a follow-on question on that, we've been kind of incurring a net loss of about INR 3 crores every quarter on this business. Do you think that's still a number which will kind of hold for a few more quarters? Or you think that's like kind of peaked and is probably likely to now start trending downwards?
Yeah, I think it continues to operate at this level for next couple of quarters. However, when the business grows, and obviously it's going to grow, and as I told you guys, plan is to be INR 100 crore company in next three years. We see that the growth is happening. Yeah, the next couple of quarters, the loss will be similar level. As the business improves, the loss will also come down. Probably, hopefully, maybe, next couple of years or a year down the line, probably we'll see whether hope we can able to get a little bit of the extent. Again, I don't want to be sure of that one, but we see that the traction and growth.
Yeah, in the short term, yes, loss will be at a similar level.
Right. I'm sure your hands are full now with both the matchmaking and the wedding services business, but any other adjacencies that we are beginning to explore or evaluate or that we have any plans in the near term? Are we kind of currently we are occupied with both these two segments for now?
We'll continue to explore the opportunities in the core matchmaking and the wedding services area. As an organization, you know, keep evaluating opportunity, keep exploring new avenues to drive growth. They continue to happen.
Okay, thank you. Thank you so much and good luck for the year ahead. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Thank you, Nilesh. Yeah.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Pranav Sitaria from Edelweiss. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thanks for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. Firstly, can you comment a bit about, you know, how should we see the cost going forward, specifically the employee cost and, advertising cost? The employee costs, you know, for most of the internet companies have seen a fair bit of escalation. For Matrimony, the escalation is, you know, much lesser. Should we see, you know, bigger increase in employee cost in FY23? You know, also on advertising cost, how do you see FY23 advertising panning out, considering current competitive intensity? Any comment on the competitive intensity? Thank you.
Yeah. In terms of employee cost, probably, you know, maybe grow by 8%-10%.
eight - nine.
Yeah, 8%-9%. We run a very, you know, kind of efficient organization and, so that way, you know, so we see the portion that appraisal and some additions. We feel that we could able to manage with this kind of cost. In terms of the marketing cost, marketing costs, they are continuing to increase, but because industry began new opportunities and new avenues to drive growth. However, last year we spent INR 160 crore. Yeah, definitely increase in marketing. But we do expect that, you know, we are industry begin the growth and, as I said, the growth will this year be better. But definitely, yeah. Yes, employee cost we spoke about, the marketing definitely going to increase.
In terms of competitive intensity, if that reduces, that definitely our marketing costs also reduce. In fact, if not for that increased competitor marketing spend, our profit would have been probably maybe higher growth last year, it could have achieved because last year spent INR 160 crore on marketing, probably could have even managed with under INR 60 crore on marketing. However, we expect this to continue, but however, we are kind of as an organization, we continue to grow, continue to widen the gap with our standard competitors. Maybe in the future that the competition to reduce probably those benefits come into our EBITDA. We continue to reinvest and run our efficient operations and it's good, better. That's how we have.
I mean, if I have to summarize, you are saying that the competitive intensity has been largely stable and, INR 160-odd crore, what you spent on marketing will grow in line with the revenue, assuming the competitive intensity remains where it is. Is that fair assessment?
Yeah. There'll be some increase in marketing, depends on how the, you know, overall scenario, how we see the outlook for some of our initiatives, how the competitors are going to, you know, kind of, conduct themselves. Depends on various things. We do see increase in marketing. However, we do see that our growth this year will be better than the previous year.
Can you comment a bit on the growth? I mean, is it the market expansion or realization improvement or you know market share gains? You know, which of the levers you think is you know going to drive growth for this year?
The combination will continue to do very well and continue to gain market share and continue to expand and, you know, working on new avenues to drive growth. Under the global expansion and our growth in our personal services, online services. It's a combination of various factors are driving the growth. We expect that all the things continue to kind of go to get better and we see that kind of outlook. Yeah, we definitely gaining share from our competitors, and we are growing and yeah.
Can you highlight any, is the growth higher in certain geographies or, let's say north market or west market or anything like that?
Yeah, no, south and east are very dominant markets of Matrimony.com. However, we are actually, you know, a leading player, a number one player in west. North is the only market where, you know, we are fighting with other players. There also we're seeing that, you know, the growth momentum. It's growth is across the market and not limited to any particular geography. However, we see the north is where, you know, there is an intense competition. Again, north is one part of our business. We continue with our strong dominance in the regions where we hold a strong reach and strong dominance. That's continuing. We are definitely gaining share in other regions as well. Yes, the growth is not limited to any particular region.
It's across the regions.
Sure. Thank you so much for the answers.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Sonal Minhas from Prescient Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir, this is Sonal. I hope I'm audible.
Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Sir, just reconciling from the last few analyst calls we've been participating in, and we've been basically trying to inch towards like a quarterly revenue run rate of close to INR 120-INR 125 crores, which basically means like a revenue top line of INR 500 crores on a run rate basis. Currently, we are at INR 110 as we speak in this particular quarter. I just wanted to understand like is there a timeline we have in our mind for that? Are we in our own expectations at par with that timeline? Or there are some challenges in the market which make us maybe a step behind our own internal benchmark on that particular number.
If you could highlight the challenges, if there are any, that'll be great to understand.
Thank you. In terms of the billing, you know, we look at the billing.
Sure.
The billing for the quarter was INR 115 crore.
Sure.
Just another INR 10 crore, we get into, you know, INR 500 crore run rate. We definitely sometime this year, probably maybe second quarter or possibly, I don't know, may get into that kind of run rate. If not quarter two, maybe quarter three, but we are almost there. It's a matter of time, we'll be getting to the INR 500 crore run rate. The fourth quarter, the goal is to be once we hit the INR 500 crore run rate, obviously we know that the next big milestone for us to become an INR 1,000 crore company. Hopefully we'll be able to get there probably in a three-four years, yeah.
Understood. Sir, from a competitive intensity perspective, like, just want to understand, given how the liquidity is getting out of the market, are you seeing like signs of marketing tapering by your competition in the last two months or anything subjective around there that makes you believe that the marketing intensity should taper or should stagnate at these levels?
No, we are not seeing any significant reduction in the marketing because Info Edge is one of the players. They have the deep pockets. They can invest as much as they want. The other players, you know that they will also continue to invest. We at this point of time are not seeing any slowdown, but we have to wait and see whether there's any total anything. However, we are kind of well-placed and so if the competitive intensity reduces, that means we can reduce and save on marketing. We'll not be spending the same on marketing. However, as I said, we have the growth ideas, growth initiatives, and we continue growing independent initiative.
We expect, you know, that, you know, the growth, the increases and the revenue increases, our EBITDA margin also continue going to increase. The company internal reduction means the EBITDA margins are going up. I don't know whether it's going to happen this year or next year, but that's something very difficult to see at this point of time.
Understandable. If I may sneak another question which is related, can I?
Yeah, please go ahead.
Sure. Sir, on the top line, growth, I just want to understand if you could give a ballpark of, or split the numbers between, your new geographies and your, existing geographies with the South Indian market where you're dominant. Like, what are the growth rates you're seeing in new geographies versus, the South Indian market? If you could just maybe highlight some subjective or numerical, data on that will help understand, the split, how you're doing in the existing and the new geographies specifically.
In the south and east we are dominant players, and we are a number one player in the west. Only market where we are sort of fighting with other players in north market. For competitive reasons, we are not doing the breakup. However, as I said, you know, we have been growing across the markets, not limited in particular geographies. Just, you know, kind of at this point that we don't want to give a breakup of regionalized growth and all.
Okay. You're happy with the growth in your existing markets where you're dominant player. That's, I think that's more what I wanted.
Yeah, yeah. No, definitely. That's a very, very strong market for us and we have strong network, that's a strong reach. Yeah.
Got it, sir. Okay. That is from my side. I'll come back in the queue. Thank you, sir.
Sure. Thanks.
Thank you.
Bye.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have the next question from the line of Vivekanand Subbaraman from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. One is on the billing growth in the matchmaking services segment. We have seen that through the year there has been a moderation of growth of billing and we have managed to deliver a good billing growth for the full- fiscal- year, around 12.2%. As we close the year, this billing growth was lower. Murugavel, how should we think about the growth for billing and why is the industry billing not growing despite, as you yourself admitted, you know, the INR 160 crore of advertising could have very well delivered this growth with INR 100 crore of advertising. You know, you're spending INR 60 crore more, right?
You know, as an investment for growth. You know, why is the segment on the whole not growing as fast as, say, some of the other tech segments? That's question one. The second question is on Jodii, which is the, you know, across Indian languages you have launched this app. How is the sign-up rate here and the experience and, you know, by when do you think this will start contributing meaningfully to your overall revenue or at least in terms of the paid transactions? Sushanth, just to understand the transactions, paid transactions better, does this also include contributions from Jodii in the matchmaking segment? Thank you. Those are my questions.
Thank you, Vivekanand. In terms of the growth, I think we expect outlook for matchmaking this year, definitely the growth of matchmaking this year is better than the FY 2022, okay? We continue to take steps, you know, whether it's, you know, expansion, new initiatives or continue to drive the core matchmaking business growing at a better rate. We definitely see that, this year the growth will be better. In terms of the Jodii, yeah, Jodii is obviously it's very new, it's just six months. We're definitely seeing, you know, kind of, some traction.
Again, it's very, very early stages, so to comment or give any breakup of Jodii and all, but as I told you, it's just six months old. It's still in the early stages and so we see some traction, but again, too early to comment on those things. So just the everything, volume, everything includes the Jodii as well. Because as I told you, Jodii is a very new initiative. We just even other languages just launched recently. It was Tamil for almost four-five months. We rolled out other languages in the last couple of months. So we also kind of invested behind it. Again, it's too early to kind of give any detail thing about Jodii. We will not
Okay. If we delve a little bit deeper into the outlook that you mentioned, are you suggesting that the outlook for growth should be better than the full- year fiscal 2022, or are you suggesting that the billing growth should be better than what we saw in FY 2022? I'm not very clear on this. Sorry.
No, no. Basically what I meant was the growth for FY 2023, what we see on matchmaking, will be better than the FY 2022 growth. Which is the FY 2022, the growth on matchmaking was at 12% on billing. We expect the growth for this year matchmaking will be better than the FY 2022 for the full- year. That, that's it.
Okay. The question that I have here is that, considering that the last few quarters, we have been growing matchmaking billing at, say, 6.1% and 6.7% now, what gives you the confidence that this billing growth can accelerate to beyond 12%, which is the number that you aspire to achieve?
I think with that, one thing that, you know, we have almost like we just concluded the migration to AWS, it happened in the month of April. We are sort of last one year, we were, you know, kind of pretty much our technology was focused on the successful migration. We are in a way that we are constrained by our ability to execute some on the technology product side. Now the migration happened, we could able to execute some of the initiatives. We already started doing it. We're seeing some traction there.
The steps we are taking in terms of geographic expansion, business expansion, other steps we have taken, some of the things what we have done in the last year, all those things, you know, started yielding results in terms of partner services, we've seen the traction. The combination of the steps what we have taken and the steps what we are taking and all the things give that confidence output what we have. Again, I'm just talking only we are on a, you know, mid-May, and we are the growth what we have seen up to today, which is, you know, kind of we are on a, you know, double-digit growth. All these things we see that clearly that this year the growth will be better now.
It's a combination of steps what we have taken and, like, as I told you, some of the points what I mentioned in terms of the ability to execute the platform will be better in terms of consumer growth platform, so plus the new businesses and other things also.
Okay. Last question from my side is on the cash balance that we want to be comfortable with. Because what we have announced a fairly large buyback, you know, and till last year we were not returning as much cash as we are planning to do with this buyback. I am just trying to understand is this something that you have done purely because you believe that the business is very, very undervalued? Or is this a buyback that you would want to do practically every year as a discipline to return a certain amount of cash to investors?
Thank you, Vivekanand. See definitely this was, you know, very much undervalued. Okay? Even at the price what we are offering, I do believe it's a very much undervalued. As a leader in this space, you know, it's a 60% market share. It's a very cash efficient business and a cash generating business and the stability and growing consistently no matter the underlying economic situation, whatever it is, this business has been a very stable, ready to grow. However, the growth would have been better, however, we are taking steps and, you know, we expect the growth momentum to get better and with further pickup from here onwards. Definitely, you know, this is very much undervalued.
Okay? That's one thing. In terms of whether it's going to be on annual basis, you know, you know, kind of that's the board will decide time to time. Again, I don't think it's on a yearly basis. Ramprasad, if you want to comment on that.
Understood.
Uh.
Vivek, just to add on this, you know, as you know, we are a cash generating company, right?
Yes.
We convert most of it into cash. If you see last year or even this quarter, we have generated INR 17 crores of cash, and last year about INR 60 crores. You know, much of it will come back within the year itself. Therefore, obviously one which Muruga said is a signaling. Second, we are also comfortable with what we have declared. It's not that we were under any pressure to declare any sort of, you know, buyback or anything like that. We believe it's a comfortable thing, and it's a good way to give back to shareholders. As you know, there are only very few methods to give, you know, in terms of whether it's a dividend or it is, buyback. We've also increased the dividend slightly, from 70% to about 100%.
You know, payout ratio is approximately +20% . I think combination of all this, what we want to do next year obviously depends on, you know, how the plan goes, how our performance goes, and accordingly the board will decide what it deems fit.
Also, there are, you know, multiple ways to, you know, deploy cash. We continue to look at the various ways to, you know, kind of, deploy cash and all. Okay? Like this year, the board has declared the dividend plus buyback. Maybe we'll do something else also. That depends on the opportunity, depends on how we want to deploy the cash. There are multiple ways to deploy the cash. We continue to look at the ways and to increase shareholder value and that's all.
Okay. Sushanth, just one bookkeeping question that I forgot to ask. What is the cash and cash equivalents balance that we have till here as on March 31st?
INR 334 crores.
All right. Thank you. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Sameer Pardikar from ICICI Direct. Please go ahead.
Can you hear me?
Yes, Sameer. Please go ahead, yeah.
I think we have informed you sufficiently about intention of our selling of our Chennai land. What is the progress on the same, and how much value we expect to realize from this sale? What are our plans to use these proceeds for?
Yeah. What is the first question you asked?
What is the progress on the sale of land in Chennai that you informed us officially?
What is that?
Progress on the sale of a land in Chennai.
Progress on the land. We, you know, just, the shareholders special resolution has just been passed. The board has taken on record such a resolution. What we intend to do is, you know, we want to follow a very professional process for this whole thing. Few things we will do. One, the board will form a small committee to overlook this whole process. Second, we will also do a fair value of the land by an independent registered valuer. The board has also decided that it will not sell the land below the cost price, whatever the cost price is. It'll be basically, you know, higher of the cost price or the fair value, you know, whichever is higher is what the board will decide to do.
What are we planning to.
Yeah. The fourth thing is that, you know, we will sell to parties, you know, who are not related parties in nature.
Okay. What are we planning to use to utilize these proceeds for? For marketing expenses?
Mr. Sameer Pardikar, this is the operator. Would request you to kindly come a little closer to the mic as your voice is not very clear.
Yeah. Can you hear me now? Do you want me to repeat it?
No, no. I said, what are our plans to utilize this proceeds for, once we realize the value from the land?
Yeah. Whatever value we'll get it from the land will be used for advertising expenses.
Okay, thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you. We have the next question from the line of Nagesh Rajanna from NR Family Office. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Rajanna. Good evening, and thanks for the opportunity. I have been a staunch believer of you know, your business for a very, very long time, and I'm very happy the way the business has been you know, progressing consistently. I have couple of requests before I ask a question. To begin with, I have a request that you know, if you could also start sharing a quarterly you know, presentation with the business updates and also the future outlook. I think that should help investors like me and probably more. That's a suggestion and a request. Coming back to my question, I think there's been a lot of discussion around the growth, and I clearly see the concern you know, among everyone, and it's true for me as well.
Is there a way you could actually share a slightly broader picture for the next, you know, three-five years in terms of what's your vision? Okay, what are the kind of strategic initiatives? What are your other growth drivers which one has been exploring? Is it possible for you to share a broader, you know, larger picture of the business?
On the presentation, we do a quarterly presentation on the highlights of the results and what we think about the business, also along with the background of the company and everything. It is uploaded on our websites after every quarter. You can also refer to that as well. Is that what you were meaning?
Well, I don't see the same on the BSE or on any other site, so probably I've been missing it out.
Sure. We'll check about that.
In terms of growth, you know, the matchmaking, you know. The matchmaking has the three levers. I think it's all very fundamental to the nature of the business. One is that, getting more members to sign up, that is the top of the funnel, and converting some members, the free members into paid members at what is the transaction value. We are working on ways to drive all the three things. Increasing the number of members to sign up on our services and, you know, continue to work on the conversion percentage and continue to drive the average transaction value for the right customer at the right price. That has been the broad strategy for us. Again, this is a broad strategy.
This has been a broad strategy, and there are so many underlying strategies around this broad strategy. What are the steps that we are taking to get more member to sign up, and so that's been one of the things. Again, in terms of conversion, it's a combination of product and the sales and various other strategies that's happened on regular basis to get more member to go from free to paid membership. As I told, the average transaction value is a combination of, you know, people taking online services, partner services, and also, and get the member to pay the right product, choose the right product at the right price. In terms of... By the way, I want to thank, you know, kind of you being a strong believer of Matrimony service.
Definitely, you know, we are thankful for that. Definitely this business is one of the business, you know, it's in a very limited cash and there's immense potential. We continue to work on the various strategies and, you know, on other ways to get all the three areas to get better. Whether be the geographic expansion, whether be the setting up of Bangladesh, whether the new business will be the Jodii or the last year we launched some of the initiatives like new offerings were also launched. We continue look at the various ways to expand our offerings and the various ways to drive the conversion. Again, that's a bit of broad strategy or sub-strategy.
You know, we don't want to get into too detailed on those things. This probably sort of, you know, kind of sums it up in terms of how we are looking at, you know, the growth and what are the levers to drive the growth actually. Yeah, I appreciate that, and thanks for that. I somewhere you also mentioned about INR 1,000 crore, you know, vision. Is that a kind of a vision statement? I mean, when do you see yourselves, you know, striking that+ INR 1,000 crore kind of a revenue
Is there a kind of a roadmap for the business?
Yeah, definitely. No, we definitely this year will cross INR 500 crore, you know, billion. We hope that we hit the run rate probably sometime, you know, maybe, you know, in the coming quarters. Definitely this year the company will cross INR 500+ crore in billing. In terms of INR 1,000 crore, yeah, probably, you know, maybe next year, maybe around four years or so, possibly four -five years, possibly. Maybe depends on how when we are able to drive things, it's good thing. Yes, the INR 1,000 crore plan is pretty much that one of the things what we are driving. Out of that, we expect our wedding services to contribute INR 100 crore.
At the enterprise level, we want to be a INR 1,000 crore company and, matchmaking contributing INR 900 crore and wedding services contributing 100 crore. On that one today, matchmaking is 430 crore. Hopefully next four years or something like that, we expect matchmaking to probably become a sort of INR 900 crore, hopefully. Again, this is all. We have ambitious goal to drive it maybe four years or five years, but definitely once you touch INR 900 crore, next big milestone are possibly become a INR 1,000 crore company.
Yeah. I think the current business model in itself should take us to close to INR 750 crore by FY 2025 organically, even if one has to look at a CAGR of +15% .
Plus, yeah.
If you have plans of, you know, bringing in another inorganic around INR 200 crore-INR 250 crore, that should be good to take us to +1,000 crore .
Yeah. We are not only looking at inorganic. No, we are looking at organically driving the growth. Okay? We're not talking about the growth. The growth we're talking about is pretty much driven organically. Yeah. Not even talking about any inorganic growth. Yeah.
All right. Wish you all the best. Thanks.
Thanks. You know, basically, we want to drive it aggressively that, you know, we want to accelerate our growth momentum that, I think, we believe that, we are getting that.
Yeah, please do. I think we are a new age company, and I think it's very important for us to, you know, be at least, you know, 2x-3x of GDP growth year-on-year.
Yeah. Agree with you.
Yeah. Thank you so much. All the very best.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on your touchtone telephone.
There are no more questions. Maybe we can close, Mike.
Yes, sir. We don't have any further questions. I would now like to hand it over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you very much, and appreciate the interest in Matrimony.com, and thank you for your continued support, and we look- forward to stay in touch. If you have any specific question, anything, we'll be happy to take it, one-on-one individually. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Thank you, everyone. Look-f orward to speaking with you in the coming days. If you have any questions, please feel free to write to us. Thank you, Saurabh, as well.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. On behalf of IIFL Securities Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.