Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Matrimony.com Q3 FY25 Conference Call. 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 this call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchstone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Jayram Shetty from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Hi, everyone. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I would like to welcome you all to the Quarterly FY25 Earnings Call of Matrimony.com. From the company, we have Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman, MD and CEO, and Mr. Sushanth Pai, the CFO. Over to you, Mr. Janakiraman, for your opening remarks.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Jayram Shetty. Good evening, everyone. As per the Google report on matrimony industry, the whole industry has seen an 8% drop in search queries for the first-ever time. All the players, including long-tail players, have seen a similar drop, and it is a broader industry trend. Our member registration has fallen broadly in line with the industry trend in the current financial year. This has affected our monetization plans. During the last call, we were hopeful of a revival in quarter three due to the marriage season and also due to the launch of our Great Indian Matchmaking Fest campaign. The revenue was muted when we forecast them in October. We are hopeful of a revival in November and December on account of the revival of the wedding season as well as the plans we had for the media campaign.
However, we've seen a drop in November and December that has affected our overall plan for quarter three. However, we are taking new initiatives to drive the profile growth, including we are launching a Vernacular-based app. We already have our apps available in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam, and we'll be launching our app in other languages very soon. We are also backing up these apps in Vernacular language with the Tili communications. Once we make the app available in Vernacular languages, we'll be amplifying that availability through the media campaign. We also expect personnel services to have a double-digit growth on account of steps that we are taking to convert more members to go for the personnel services. We are launching a new version of community matrimony apps sometime this month. We have a lot of community-based matrimony apps.
These apps have been one of the important pillars of our growth, and they've been a very, it's been a long time since we've made any significant changes on these apps, and we are launching a new version sometime this month. We continue to improve our product, and we are seeing an increase in engagement and an increase in key metrics. We're also experimenting with new ideas to drive growth on all fronts, including a new experiment and pricing strategy. We are also working on additional monetization plans. We're also taking steps to optimize our cost, and that may happen sometime in quarter one. We expect to improve margins once the revival happens. We expect the revival sometime probably in the coming quarters.
Coming to the research, in quarter three, on a consolidated basis, we are actually building up INR 109.4 crores, a decline of 1.5% quarter-over-quarter, and 5.9% year- on- year. Revenue at INR 111.4 crores, a decline of 3.5% quarter- over- quarter, and 5.1% year-on-year. Here I look for the matrimony business in quarter two as follows: building at INR 108.3 crores, a decline of 1.4% quarter- over- quarter, and 5.1% year-on-year. Revenue at INR 110 crores, a decline of 3.6% quarter-over-quarter, and 4.2% year-on-year. We added INR 2.38 lakh paid subscriptions during the quarter, a decline of 3.7% quarter-over-quarter, and 9.7% year-on-year. Average transaction value for the matrimony business increased by 2.4% quarter-over-quarter, and 5.1% year-on-year. We created about 27,700 plus success stories.
Now, coming to the marriage services and other business, billings at INR 10 million, a decline of 1.7% quarter-over-quarter, and 50.7% year-on-year. Revenue was INR 13.4 million, a growth of 7.8% quarter-over-quarter, and a decline of 40% year-on-year. Loss in the quarter was INR 38 million compared to the loss of INR 36.4 million in quarter two of FY 2025. The losses include new initiatives, including wedding loan, astrology, and other initiatives. On the billings and the revenue output for quarter four, we expect the growth in matrimony billings in quarter four on a quarter-over-quarter basis. However, there will be a revenue decline due to the mutual billings growth in quarter three. Marriage services are expected to be at a similar level as quarter three. Now, let me pass on to Sushanth to comment on the few profitable items. I'll pass over to you.
Thanks, Murugavel. Our EBITDA margin for the matrimony business in Q3 is at 18.7% as compared to 22.6% in quarter two and 18.9% a year ago. Marketing expenses for matrimony in quarter three are at INR 46.2 crore as compared to INR 45.2 crore in quarter two and INR 45.5 crore a year ago. Excluding marketing expenses, our margins in matrimony are at 61% as compared to 59% a year ago, a slight improvement in margins excluding marketing expenses. On a consolidated basis, our EBITDA margins in Q3 are at 12.4% compared to 15.2% in quarter two and 14.3% a year ago. Tax rate in the quarter is at 17.6% as compared to 23.3% in quarter two due to higher long-term tax benefit after considering the holding period till quarter three. This is expected to normalize in quarter four.
Profit after tax is at INR 9.97 crore, a decline of 24.2% quarter on quarter and 10.2% year-on-year. Share of Q3 loss from Astrovision or associate company is about INR 510,000. Cash balance is at INR 315 crore. It declined as compared to Q2 due to the buyback that we just concluded in Q3. However, operating cash flow generation to EBITDA has been robust at 100%. ROC is 10.4%. On the outlook for Q4 margin, as Murugavel discussed, we are taking various measures to increase traction in our businesses and also various measures to optimize costs. However, we expect the PAT to be lower than the levels of Q3 due to the subdued business momentum. 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 is required by law. Now, we can start the Q&A session.
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 their touchstone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets only while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have our first question from the line of Damodaran N. from Acuitas Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. Hope I am audible.
Yes, sir. Damodaran. Please go ahead, yourself.
Yeah. Two questions, and they're in.
Yes, please go ahead.
Yes, sir. He got disconnected. I'll reconnect him.
Disconnected. Yes, sir. Okay.
Hello?
Damodaran, go ahead with the questions. Yeah.
Yeah. Can you hear me?
Yes, yes, sir. Damodaran. Please go ahead.
Yeah. The question was on, I mean, revenue growth. We are seeing a strong marriage season currently, and their competitor also had reported numbers yesterday. I know their base is much smaller. They are one-fourth our size, but they have still shown robust growth. I mean, we also were expecting this Muhurta season, the issue to get over by Q3, but we have seen billings also declining by 5%. I really wanted to check whether is this—is this—you attributed this to an industry-wide issue, but going by the competition numbers, at least the one that we can see, they have still reported strong growth, and we are still hearing of a strong marriage season. Where is the disconnect?
If you can throw some light—I mean, I heard your opening remarks when you referenced that Google report. Can you give some more color as to why there is this disconnect, I mean, between what we can see and what the numbers are?
Okay. What are the—there's two questions. This one question, what is the disconnect?
Yeah. The other one is kind of related. The other one is on ad spend. We have been investing fairly significantly in ads in the last three, four odd years. Yet, despite that, we have seen revenues declining, and this is in the backdrop of, again, a competition now kind of easing off on ad spend and still managing to grow revenue. Should we—how should we look at ad spend? Is it the spend that is required to maintain these current level of subscribers? Is that how we should look at it? Because incremental ad spend is not yielding the same kind of revenue. Your December subs are flat on a two-year basis. Just wanted to—both the questions are kind of related.
If you can throw some light on this.
Thank you, Mr. Damodaran. We'll respond to the first one. We are talking about the competitor. As we made some changes a few years back, the revenue was at a certain base before they decided to offer a free service that impacted the revenue drop of 30%. Now, they decided to kind of move back to the early level, but to some extent, they have gone back to the early level of revenue what it was earlier. Definitely optimized the cost, and we've seen that once again they started the marketing campaign in quarter three. The competitor is reporting strong numbers. Basically, they've gone back to the earlier trajectory what they had prior to the decision what they've taken to offer a service as a free service when probably they did not see that shifting, that they moved to different models.
Basically, to some large extent, they've gone back to the early levels of the business. I think that probably when the base was eradicated, some growth happened from that base. It's not as it was detected a few years ago, what was the base that they had. On the base, they had a growth. Currently, it's not the case. It is more of change of business model once again gone back to the early level to large extent. Probably suddenly, probably some execution slightly better on what are the models they have or what are the bases they have. The industry trend is broader. It's not limited to only one player. Probably when you see some kind of better execution or some other parameter, it could have resulted in some marginal increase or maybe the pricing, whatever it is.
It is broadly there, but the industry trend is broad for everybody. That is the point I wanted to communicate. With the marketing spend, it has been well laid out because still the industry is continuing to operate on one of the players we thought is sort of profitability. Once again, we have seen that the advertisement has started. At this point in time, everyone is advertising. We definitely see scope to optimize the marketing spend. As I mentioned in the beginning of the call, we definitely see that there is an opportunity to optimize the cost in all fronts. We probably see that happening in the coming quarter. Again, without compromising on our intent to compete across the market. We definitely want to invest in North India and all the markets, but we definitely see the scope to optimize the cost.
We will continue to invest on all fronts. At the same time, we could be able to run a better operation. When we come back to the early levels, we definitely improve margin on account of that.
Sure. Just one, I mean, related question. Does this indicate that, I mean, we are kind of saturated in our core southern market? I mean, because the profiles, you have called out profiles, top of the funnel profiles have not grown. Does that mean that we are facing a challenge because we are already fully penetrated in the southern market and we are not able to go outside the southern market for the same reason that the others are also not able to gain? There has been no market share gain by any player over the last three, four years. How should we look at the profile growth going on? The real question is, is it structural in nature or is it just a one-off thing that's happening this year?
One of the reasons for the broad industry spend, that's something while it could be argued very recent. However, in terms of the question, are we saturated or limited in South? It's not the case. Our leadership is just not limited in South. We are later in West and later in East. While not, we are one of the players and we are taking steps to develop penetration in the northern market. By the way, talking about the overall industry put together, the entire reach may be around maybe 10 million users, random compared to the 60 million people are looking for life partner. There is definitely a way to grow. We'll get one center top of the funnel. The steps what we are taking. We are the only player who launched now app in three different languages. We see that could be an opportunity.
We launched. We are now taking steps to get more number to sign up on our platform. We are going to take some steps. We are taking steps. When I spoke about language, one of the things we are definitely looking at, other avenues to also drive the profile acquisitions. We do not see that it is a saturation because sometimes the industry may go through. I do not know whether it is. Again, my theory is that I may be wrong also. During the COVID time, we saw the surge in profiles. I do not know whether the surge was maybe now getting normalized. I do not know. At this point in time, no idea on why the broad industry has taken. However, it is not that the saturation has happened. That is definitely not the case. We need to work on various ways to drive the top of the funnel.
As I told, one is the language. We are also taking other initiatives. We are definitely highly confident of driving the top of the funnel. However, the top of the funnel is only one side of the story. There is a conversion. There is R2. Now, we are looking at various strategies to drive these things. Definitely, we see this year we're definitely able to demonstrate success in some other front because we are launching a new website now, CommunityMatrimony.com. There are plans around how to effectively leverage both the brands. There are solid plans around it. We are also taking the initiative. I think in a way, it was in a way while it was challenging. Again, we are using this challenge as an opportunity to see how we can do better in all aspects.
While on one hand, we be efficient in our organization, the other hand, we're able to drive effectively the new initiatives, the ideas what we're working on in all fronts. I think I feel that maybe in the coming quarters, we'll emerge much stronger and we'll move the growth up. It sort of certainly seems to be a we are doing the right thing, I'm quite confident about the steps what we are taking and the plans what we are.
Sure. Just one more question. On the new initiatives, will the burn rate be in that INR 10-12 crore range that we have kind of maintained over the last three, four years? I mean, since we have launched on multiple, I mean, multiple new initiatives. Would you look at kind of increasing that threshold?
Basically, what we are doing is while definitely the burn seems to be not only initiatives. At this point in time, we do not want to burn too much of cash. We are, again, some of the initiatives we have to monetize, be it LTLO.com. We definitely, once we reach a certain infant base, want to monetize. Definitely, those initiatives, once you reach a certain base, will start contributing. At this point, we are burning. Like that, other initiative as well. To your question on, will the losses be more than what we have been seeing, broadly, it has been the same range. Once you see some traction, once you are able to see some phenomenal growth, once you are able to get a certain thing right, that is when I come back to ask what is the initiative driving the growth.
I was thinking about not about it's more of a losses. It's about driving the growth and achieving the scale inside and out. At this point in time, we can think that it'd be a similar range, but it's not a lot of experience happening. Definitely, some of the initiatives are very encouraging. Maybe in the coming quarter, we'll have better visibility and better clarity on those things. To answer your question, yeah, at this point in time, it'll be broadly the same language.
Sure. That is it from my side. Thanks for answering my questions. All the best.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Shehaj Gattani from Axis Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. My first question is around the new initiative. Basically, around ManyJobs. If you just give any kind of numbers that you can share about the number of employers and the number of jobs which have been done there as such. Just trying to understand where the progress on that.
Again, at this point in time, keeping it only to limit to terminal with the free services. We intend to monetize once we reach our 5 million resumes, once we reach probably 10,000-plus employers. We already have close to a couple of lakhs of resumes. It is going on fine. As I told, it is still in a very early stage. Only when we reach certain base in terms of when it is been monetized, we will know the better clarity on this thing. At this point in time, we feel we are on the right track.
Got it. Got it. The second question is around merit services. We've seen a consistent burn over the years. Is there any services which you've figured which are not working out? You'd shut down or plan to do something of that sort? I understand the new initiatives, but something that's not working out so that we can try to reduce the cash burn on those funds, something that has not worked out over a period of time?
Yeah. Yeah. We already are taking steps, and we are investing again in the new initiative. As I told, we are trying one is to make my wedding in Tamil Nadu. Like I said, we are not investing in all fronts on wedding services. Having wedding services as a base and as the relationship, we are trying to leverage for the new initiative. Basically, we are investing again or focusing on initiatives where it is a very good opportunity to develop. Other things, it's more like in a way, it's important for the overall business model. We are not going to invest aggressively on or invest on those fronts, but it has a certain base. It has a certain reach. It has a certain relationship. Those relationships are important for the new business model.
Obviously, we are trying to achieve a break-even or run it at a certain level. But investing in new initiatives, leveraging the base of the wedding services business.
Got it. Thank you. That's it from my end.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Vasudevan from Two Value Investment. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good evening, sir.
Yes, Mr. Vasudevan.
The thing is, I have seen your accounts for the last two years, sir. It has been very flat to negative. Though you have explained and you have taken the initiative, even in the next quarter, you have slightly subdued return when you are expecting it. How long will it take actually to show up? It is very flat and with a negative bias for the last, say, six to seven quarters, sir. This is my first question. After this, I have got a suggestion to make also, sir. Can I make it right now or after you are answering the question, sir?
No. No. Whatever, you can go ahead on the suggestion as well.
I came across how much is your revenue from the AstroTalk or something like that you have? No?
Huh?
That's astrology-based. Astrology-based.
Yeah. Okay. Regarding the thing in terms of the last couple of years, so basically, while the recent what we told, and we are definitely a river well of the numbers sometime in the coming quarters. Again, it's not only that the profit is increasing. I think a lot of steps are taken. Once I think moving to that growth path, I think the margins definitely get better because I told you already operating costs. I think we are definitely hopeful of river well in the coming year, the coming financial year. Whether one or two quarters down the line, maybe a bit longer also. We are hopeful of the early river well than taking longer time. At this point in time, not sure. We are confident of river well in the early quarters.
In terms of astrology, at this point in time, we are not giving the breakup of things. As I told you, we are also experimenting various things on astrology. In fact, we are planning to change some model on astrology. That may happen sometime this year, sir, sometime this month. At this point in time, we're not giving the breakup, Mr. Vasudevan.
Can I suggest one thing, sir? I came across a startup in Delhi called AstroTalk, sir. They are purely on the astrology only. The total turnover per year is INR 600 crore. I think this astrology is a low-hanging fruit. I think now, matrimony, the automate, there is a time of INR 600 crore a startup is making in Delhi. I think with a strong foundation which you are having, I think you can penetrate deep on this one, sir, in that segment. This is my suggestion. Actually, it's a huge chance for you to show up your top line and bottom line also, sir. This astrology is very, I mean, that will contribute much more to your, what do you say, for your matrimony accounts, sir. That is what I feel, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Vasudevan. We have some plans along the way to call you to some new initiative coming in that front. We are repositioning something in our astrology as well. Great opportunity. Thank you so much, sir.
Okay, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. The next question is from the line of Avinash Bhaskar, a shareholder. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. The first question that I have is, is there any evidence of us losing, let's say, market share in terms of new app downloads or profiles? Specifically in the South market to Shaadi because of their lot of ads around TamilShaadi.com or anything of the sort, especially at the app level, app downloads?
Basically, while we continue our very high market share in South and other markets as well, we also plan to leverage our reach. As I told you, we launched Universal Mahabharata Matrimony. Sorry, coming to Matrimony, all these Matrimony sites. We have plans to cross-leverage all our Matrimony apps. We see in the coming quarter, we'll definitely effectively leverage our reach and things to benefit all our group's offering. Basically, the last couple of years, we have been working on a lot of improvements on the core product offering and still the work is in progress. We hope to complete some of the key changes in the coming months, hopefully by March. For that, we definitely look at leveraging the network of sites to cross-promote, cross-leverage. We'll definitely see action happening that way.
At this point in time, we want to get that core product right. We see definitely BharatMatrimony sites, including all the Tamil-based sites. We've seen that the metrics going up. In fact, the key metrics are moving up and the engagement is pretty good. Once the revamp happens, as we've been working for quite some time, we see that we could be able to leverage our reach for promoting all our group effectively.
Got it. What I should understand is, historically speaking, there has been no change. Is that what I should take?
It's basically been last, it's more like more of silos. We were trying to do sites and also the Bengal Gold Awards. As I told you, the Community Matrimony sites have been a long-term thing to do the revamp. The way we are looking at the new version which is intended to launch will be similar to Matrimony things. It will be a similar functionality. Maybe the look and feel may be different. It will make it easy for customers to even use our services. That's going to happen. It's all taken a little longer time because of the considerable volume of the action also. I think we see that the action in the coming quarter in terms of how we effectively want to leverage the network ourselves.
Okay. Okay. Got it. The second is this latest matchmaking fest campaign. Is that completed? Has there been any considerable impact on any metrics? How should I look at it as a shareholder?
Which one?
The matchmaking, the Great Indian Matchmaking Fest.
It was yet another campaign. We did not populate the data itself or whatever. I do not know whether it was all the industry trend or something. Anyway, we have sort of launched a new TV campaign since we launched our apps in the language. That is one of our communication new commercials. We now launched a new TV commercial across India, communicating in terms of our platform.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions. The next question is from the line of Prabhu Sampath, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Mr. Prabhu, we request you to unmute your line and go for the questions. Mr. Prabhu? The next question is from the line of Maneet, a shareholder. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. My question is regarding ad spend. Despite your multiple communications regarding ad spend being elevated, since it has been happening for quite a few years, there is a little bit of worry that probably this competitive dynamics has or the industry sector has kind of changed that this probably becomes a norm, especially considering our kind of industry where you have drop-offs in terms of profiles on a regular basis. What I would like to understand is, leaving the competition aside, how has our ad spend been spent in the last four or five years? How much of it was used for gaining market share in the northern and the western markets where we are traditionally slightly weak? Or how much of it has been used for defense against the inflow of competition in southern markets and all?
If you can just split it up a little bit in terms of strategy, how did you go about spending your ad in the last couple of years? Where did you get return on investment commensurate to the spends? Where do you see levels of optimization in the future forward? That will help us explain in terms of whether structurally anything has changed in this industry or whether it is just a phase of increased ad spend and it is going to go away in the future. That confidence I'm not getting because of last four or five years of continuous elevated spend. If you can assimilate that here, that will be helpful.
Thank you, Maneet. I think there are a combination of multiple things. Look at the ad spend, it is definitely elevated level. What are the reasons? There are multiple reasons. One is that increased competition. When people are fighting for the market, sir, then obviously everything shoots up, including our digital spend and we are on the Google because people are trying to grab the market, sir. When the ad spend goes up on the platform because people are trying to get their share of the thing and people are trying to defend the market, sir, or people are trying to grab it, sir. Basically, the elevated spend is contributing to the digital spend because people are trying to get even digital has gone up. You are talking about the Google spend because everybody is trying to spend for this keyword and all, whatever, maybe on the other platforms.
Plus, also TV, obviously people are trying to get a share and that means you are spending more than what it is worth. Is the elevated level of marketing spend not? No, it's not, sir. It's more of if everyone wants to think, then obviously some people try to grab, some people try to defend, or it's a combination of both. I think that net-net interest rate has certain dynamics now. I would say that there is still some kind of softness in one of the players. Obviously, they try to enter on India. They realize that they better to focus on one market. That has happened. Definitely, that is one thing. We also see some market, some smaller markets, the ad spend has come down or not that. Still, it's not still at a higher level, but we see some kind of softness.
How long is it going to continue? I'm not sure. Okay? Definitely, digital, it's gone up. TV, yes, it's there. In some market, we see some kind of softness, but still at a higher level. Definitely, this level of spend is equal, not equal. It's more of everybody's wanting spend. I will say that while let the competition, whatever it will be there also. Now we are taking a step irrespective of whatever be the competition, irrespective of whatever it will be. We are now working on the ways to drive our growth and all. We're taking new initiatives or new strategies. I think that's the roadmap for us for the coming year.
Sir, just to follow up, how should we look at it? Should we think, since you mentioned that digital probably it has gone up slightly more, do we look at it as there are certain mediums like digital versus TV where we are spending lesser, so we had to up our spend in terms of digital to beat the bare minimum? Should we look at certain markets where we were, like in the under spending, so that's why we had to keep it up? Should we look at it as certain markets we were spending the requisite level, but then since competition has come in and they had spent a lot more, we had to increase our spend just to cope with the elevated spend? I'm still not getting a complete clarity in terms of where exactly our spend was increased.
If so, what is the reason behind that increase? What have we learned from it? Future forward, why should we get the confidence that it's going to go down because it is a completely wasteful spend? That part, if you can just expand on it a little bit.
Oh, no. That's the thing, Maneet. The thing is that I'm not getting into market-wise. This market, you are investing to define this market, you need to grab because that's more of the competitor. You're not getting the details. However, if we're talking about are you spending more money than what is required, definitely that's the case. Even for the T1, say, some market, it is difficult to state in various things. Some market, our spend has gone up just because it has increased in marketing spend much more than what is required for the market. We increased so that we are also at a certain level of visibility in the market. That's the point number one. Are you spending more than what is required just because of increased competition? Yes, that's the case. There are markets that are investing to grow?
Yes, there are markets investing to grow also. Look at North India. Definitely, we invested to grow. Now, six months ago, both BharatMatrimony as well as CommunityMatrimony and TV campaign, North India, because we feel that we're not a growth combination of BharatMatrimony and CommunityMatrimony in North India. Basically, it's a combination of both things. I'm not getting into at this point of time, Maneet, that okay, this market is spending more. Overall, to say that is definitely the marketing spend. I think in the past also, sir, our marketing spend around, definitely going to see some reduction in the coming quarter on the marketing spend because we definitely see that we cook to run efficiently without compromising on the required visibility or required spend to defend the market or grow the market. We definitely see some kind of optimization forward.
That's going to happen. To this one, if you look at what is the marketing spend, I think it's going to even easily in terms of INR 47 crore, probably it can even INR 31-32 crore and all because the competition seems to go down. That's the kind of thing. Don't even spend that kind of money on market. Or even INR 30 crore per quarter is good enough.
Okay. Okay, sir, thank you. Just one last thing. I also wanted to wish Sushanth for his time at Matrimony. I found his communication to be very sensible and clear. I wish him the best in all his future endeavors. Thank you.
Shushant, wonderful.
Thank you.
Yeah, you've done a great job. I definitely wish him all the best. He's one of the leaders who have done a good contribution to Matrimony.com.
Thank you, Maneet, for your kind words. It has been a great journey and learning for me at Matrimony. I wish you also the very best in all your efforts.
Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one on your touchstone telephone. A reminder to all participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may press star and one. The next question is from the line of Madhur Rathi from Counter Cyclical Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, I'm trying to understand. I joined the call a bit late. I wanted to understand, sir, this drop in billing, it has been constant for the past two to three quarters. Why is that? What are the efforts that you are taking to increase this billing rate? On that. Also, second question would be, sir, there has been an increase in average transaction value. Has this been because of the elite and the other services that you are providing or anything else?
Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Madhur Rathi. One is that we've seen that there's the property issues that dropped to some extent in line with the Google report which you all shared. As per the Google report, the industry has seen an 8% decline in the search queries across the players. We are also broadly in line. That has affected the top of the line, the funnel got affected. That has resulted in the degrowth. The good thing there, we have not seen any drop in conversion metrics on account of the drop in the issues. We continue to convert very well. In terms of that's the reason we are taking steps to relieve the profile associations and launch our apps in vernacular languages. We are also taking other steps to address the growth, including improving the conversion pricing strategy.
In terms of what is the increase in output, is there, the mix one is about our pricing strategies and also some mix of changes on account of personal services moving up. So when the personal say a year or two, that has resulted in the increase in output.
That's important. Sir, do we follow some kind of a micro transaction or those kind of strategies like a freemium model similar to our competitors? Or do we plan to utilize some of these strategies going forward?
While there are different pricing strategies, we definitely have some plans to offer some monetary differently for different add-on services. Maybe we are working on various pricing strategies. We definitely look at things like some small payments for some services. Those plans are there.
That's important. Sir, over a longer term, maybe two- to three-year period, as the competition subsides or the marketing spend subsides, sir, where do we see our business growing in terms of number of users, billing, as well as the margin on the margin spend?
Margin spend, it definitely moves up. We can even definitely move very well. Today, we're operating at 12% tax margin. It can even go to 20% or higher percentage as well. It depends on both our tax and growth and marketing costs going over. EBITDA is definitely very good. I mean, overall, it doesn't tax us. At EBITDA level, definitely we can easily comfortably go beyond 25% also.
Okay. Okay, got it. Sir, those were my questions for my day. Thank you so much and all the best.
Thank you. A reminder to all participants, you may press star and one to ask questions.
If there are no questions, maybe we can close.
Okay, sir. As there are no further questions, I now hand the call to management for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Thank you to ICICI Securities for hosting this call. Thank you all for joining. We look forward to speaking with you in the coming quarter. If you have any questions, please do write to us. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.