Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q4 FY23 Earnings Conference Call for Matrimony.com, hosted by ICICI Securities. 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 then 0 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Abhishek Banerjee from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thanks. Welcome everyone to the Q4 FY23 Earnings Call for Matrimony.com. We have with us from management, Mr. Janakiraman, the Chairman and Managing Director, and Mr. Sushanth Pai, the CFO. There will be a presentation from the management, then we'll open up for Q&A. Over to you, Mr. Janakiraman, for your opening comments.
Thank you, Abhishek. Good evening, everyone. As indicated in our Q3 call, our growth momentum has picked up in Q4 as compared to Q3. With our execution focus and with our established initiatives, we expect to achieve double-digit growth in FY 2024 along with significant acceleration in profitability. This year also marked the successful completion of our first buyback. In Q4, on a consolidated basis, we achieved a billing of INR 121 crore, a growth of 8.6% quarter-over-quarter and 5.1% year-on-year. Revenue of INR 114.5 crore, a growth of 3.7% quarter-over-quarter and 3.6% year-on-year. For the full year, we achieved INR 458 crore of billing, which is a growth of 8.4%.
Revenue for the full year was INR 456 crore, a growth of 4.9%. Key highlights for the matchmaking business are as follows: Billing at INR 117.6 crores, a growth of 8.6% quarter-over-quarter and 3.9% year-on-year. For the full year, billing were at INR 447 crores, a growth of 3.9%. Revenue at INR 111.6 crores, a growth of 3.6% quarter-over-quarter and 2.3% year-on-year. For the full year, revenue was at INR 446 crores, a growth of 3.6%. We added 2 lakh paid subscriptions during the quarter, which is a growth of 9% quarter-over-quarter and 11.8% year-on-year.
We added 9.94 lakh paid transactions, little shy of 1 million of paid transactions for the year. We saw the growth of 11.1% as compared to the previous year. ARPU for the matchmaking business declined by 1% quarter-over-quarter. Six point nine percent year-on-year, which is in line with our customer conversion strategy. For the full year, ARPU declined by 6.5%. We continue to track the impact we create for customers. We're happy to state that we created about 22,400+ success stories in Q1, taking the total number of success stories to 85,200+ during the last year.
Coming to the marriage services business, the billings were at INR 3.3 crore, a growth of 8.9% quarter-over-quarter and 76.9% year-on-year. Revenue was INR 2.9 crore, a growth of 10.1% quarter-over-quarter and 99.4% year-on-year. For the full year, billing was INR 11 crore, a significant growth of 151.5%. Revenue was INR 9.75 crore, a significant growth of 135.9%. Losses for the quarter was INR 3.1 crore, the same as the previous quarter. For the full year, losses were at INR 13 crore. The outlook for the current quarter. The matchmaking billing growth in quarter one will be slightly better than the growth rate achieved in quarter four.
On wedding services, the steady growth is expected to continue. Losses will be that of similar level in quarter four. Let me pass on to Sushanth to comment on the key profit guidance. Sushanth, over to you.
Thanks, Murugavel. Our EBITDA margin for the matchmaking business in Q4 is at 21.1% as compared to 17.8% in Q3 and 22.7% a year ago. For the full year, EBITDA margins for matchmaking was at 21.4% as compared to 26% in FY2022. Marketing expenses are at INR 45.3 crores as compared to INR 45.2 crores in Q3 and INR 42.7 crores a year ago. Marketing expenses for the full year was at INR 178 crores as compared to INR 161 crores in FY2022. Excluding marketing expenses, our margins in matchmaking are at 61% in FY23 as compared to 63% in FY2022.
On a consolidated basis, our EBITDA margins in quarter four are at 15% compared to 15.9% in quarter three and 18.1% a year ago. We were able to maintain margins to a large extent in quarter four, even without the one-time gain of INR 5.8 crores in quarter three on account of land sale. For the full year, our EBITDA is at INR 75 crores, 16.2% as compared to INR 90 crores, which is 20.6% in FY 2022, a decline of 16.7%. Tax rate in the quarter is at 15.7% as compared to 14.8% in quarter three. For the full year it's at 16.6% as compared to 25.2% in FY 2022.
The lower tax rate this year is mainly due to the lower tax on realized gains on mutual funds, which we are redeeming to buy-fund the buyback amount. Tax is at INR 11.54 crores, a decline of 1.7% quarter-over-quarter and 2.6% year-over-year. Share of profit from Astro-Vision is INR 4 lakhs. Astro-Vision has become profitable from this quarter. Tax for the full year is at INR 46.7 crores, which is 10.1% margin as compared to INR 53.6 crores, which was 12.2% margin in FY 2022. It is a decline of 12.9%. Our free cash generation has been strong at INR 16 crores for the quarter, and for the full year it is INR 50 crores and our cash balance is at INR 324 crores.
ROE is 18% for FY 2023. On the outlook for Q1 margins, based on Muruga's commentary that, you know, our growth will be slightly better than Q4, we expect the PAT to improve significantly in Q1 from the Q4 levels due to the revenue growth and marketing costs being at similar levels of Q4. Other highlight or announcement for the quarter is the board of directors at its meeting held today have recommended a final dividend of 100%, which is INR 5 per equity share of par value of INR 5 each subject to the approval of the shareholders. I would like to end with the 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. Over to you, Abhishek, for Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone wishing to ask a question may please 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 will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is on the line of Prakash Kapadia from Anived Portfolio Managers Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. I have two questions. You know, if I look at, you know, sequentially, we've seen flat ad spends in the matchmaking business. Is, you know, the worst of ad spends over for us and the industry in general? You know, I have observed that our TV ads have decreased. Is that observation correct? Secondly, you know, in our press release as well as in the opening remarks, Muruga just mentioned, you know, we've had a good start for FY 2024 and we look forward, you know, for acceleration in profits. How do I read this? Is it just for the Q1 or we can sustain this acceleration in profit trend for the entire year that is FY 2024? Those were my two questions.
Good evening, Prakash Kapadia.
Thanks.
The first one, just the marketing, we expect to operate at the similar level. And again, because we've seen that, you know, mix of ads, probably I know it depends on the market because again, the Desi IPL is on and again we have our different marketing strategy. But as far as marketing spend concerned, while we are looking at spending a similar lot of marketing spend, we don't see any, you know, any increase in the marketing spend in the near future. But again, as we progress, you know, things may change.
Right.
We may decide to invest for some opportunities, but at this point in time, we see that the marketing is at similar levels. Based on the number what we delivered, in terms of the profitability, if you look at the quarter four, we delivered a rebilling of INR 121 crores, but the GAAP revenue was only INR 114 crores. Almost INR 5.565 crore difference between billing as well as revenue.
Right.
Quarter one, we expect that billing to be better than the quarter four. The combination of that one, because normally there is a one-quarter lag between the billing and revenue. The increase in billing on this Q1 will further increase our revenue. Considering the marketing is at similar level, other expenses for us more or less are flat, except for some slight increase in the people cost. We expect that a good increase in the tax margin. We expect probably a 300 basis point increase in tax in quarter one.
Right.
While talking about the growth outlook for the coming year, because the combination of our execution strategies, other initiatives, we believe now slowly that things are scaling up and we expect to end the FY 2024 with a double-digit growth. Based on the outlook what we have, based on our growth initiative strategies, I think that's the level of confidence we have. Since the marketing, we believe that, you know, we have reached a certain threshold on marketing for the current level of business and the way we are looking at running things.
The increase in growth should sort of move the bottom line. Again, it's all subject to many things, all the things. At least for the time, that's the outlook for this.
Sure. That is helpful and good to know. you know that ad spend, is it, right observation, which I was, you know, trying to understand? Have, you know, ad spends decreased on TV because I see lesser ad spends on?
Yeah, no, I mean, depends on the market because we are not done TV, in the current month because of the IPL is going on. We didn't want to, and after we are launching new TV campaigns. We are just going to post the IPL, we launch our TV campaign. That option. We see that, we the new ad coming for post IPL.
Sure. Understood. Thank you and all the best. I'll join back if I have more questions.
Yeah. Thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone wishing to ask a question, may please press star and one. The next question is on the line of Sonal from Tremis Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Am I audible?
Yes, you are. Yeah, please.
Hi there. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to understand the demand outlook which you mentioned looks robust for this quarter and maybe one or two quarters going further. If you could subjectively explain what is the reason that is driving the demand revival. On the ground, what are you seeing? What segments are maybe geographically or age-wise are doing better so that we can get a better flavor of that?
See, overall, we see that, you know, because the post-COVID, I think, we sort of went through that post-COVID challenges because during the COVID time, what we saw was acceleration, recession, and so it didn't convert into a paid transit to large extent. Post the COVID ended, we saw there's a subdued demand in terms of number of people signing up. The trend did not continue. Once again, we see that things are coming back. That's one thing, because one about the, you know, the profits are coming back. The second thing is our strategy to convert free to paid and monetization strategies seem to be falling in place with new initiatives. The combination of multiple factors, Siddharth has told you the most important is the COVID factor.
The impact of COVID factor is over. Things are coming back to our level. All this factor, Madhu, are, you know, contributing to the things coming back to the, the better terms, and we expect the growth to continue. Also new initiatives, some of the new initiative also driving. We have the Jodii and Jodii again is the early stages. We have some initiative like, you know, female elite list on Jodii. We announced that free for female in Jodii. We like to announce the success model. These are some of the new things. Mainly the core business, the strategy of converting free to paid and the profits coming back, all these factors are contributing to the growth.
Understand that. Second question, directly for FY24, the internal targets for the company, we are going back to the earlier guidance of hitting a INR 500 crore revenue run rate, which translates into INR 125 crore of quarterly average run rate for this particular year, like the year coming forward.
I think, we hope to hit that run rate in quarter one, so become a INR 500 crore run rate company. I think that's, thing we are hoping to achieve. Let's have it in quarter one.
No, I was just like, yeah, exactly. Just trying to put some numbers.
Yeah. I know. I think, probably we hope to become a INR 500 crore run rate company in quarter one, we are.
Got it, sir. Okay. I'll come back in the future. I have one or two more questions, but I'll make sure I ask. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone wishing to ask a question, may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Anuj Sharma from M3 Investments. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for this opportunity. I have two questions. One is on the managed services segment. Now, we're just waiting for scale for this segment to be profitable or you think some more tweaking to the business model is required? At what scale do you think we can achieve a reasonable breakeven or a reasonable profitability? That's question number one.
Okay. You want to go with one more question? Other question.
Yeah, yeah. Maybe I'll ask that. Second is on the cost of acquisition. You know, can you just highlight as to how it has been and how is it changing? How do you see the cost of acquisition of a customer changing? Those are my two questions.
In matchmaking or wedding services.
The second, the cost of acquisition in matchmaking.
Matchmaking. Okay. Wedding services, you know, we launched a new product. Sorry, what is it? Yeah. We launched a new version of mandap.com, leveraging the platform of WeddingBazaar.com. Now both Wedding Bazaar and mandap.com runs on the same platform. We have done those changes. What I'm looking at, we're also making some changes in wedding services business. We are looking at some process changes. We're looking at some packaging changes. We want to set aside some of the fundamental things. What I'm looking at is this year, definitely one of the strategies we are driving is we want to achieve a breakeven sometime this year of wedding services, even that come with the cost of not having a good growth.
We want to optimize, we want to streamline, we want to set the foundation, get to the breakeven, then start scaling up the business. I think that approach we're going to take. Meaning, it may come at the sort of want to the not driving the aggressive growth, drive the right growth, set the fundamentals right. I think we now do that. I think that the need of the hour at this point in time, because the business that I want over the time, I want to set right some of the fundamentals which help us to scale up. Objective is to drive the breakeven sometime this year by optimizing, changing the right packages, right process improvements. I think we want to set some fundamentals right on wedding services. That's the approach we are taking now.
Better set some of the fundamental averages of business. That's a, that's a thought process on that. The customer acquisition matchmaking. Matchmaking, majority of traffic are organic traffic. I think that's the strength of what I built today. It's, our brand is more like a phenomenon with a category in most of the markets. Most of the traffic comes organically. That way it's nothing like other businesses where that business based on the customer acquisition, you have to convert that into a, the center of the impact. Majority of the business doesn't depend on customer acquisition. It's all organic. Today talk about, yeah, the good part of our brand, the advertisement on the TV advertisement. While you spend some amount of money on every good amount of money on digital.
Digital also most of the acquisition for brand related keywords. Yeah, we do some other forms of advertisement as well. Look at the customer acquisition cost that may be working negative also. Having said that, those market areas are limited. Majority of the traffic are organic. I think, that's the strength of our brand marketing.
All right. All right. Thank you for the answers.
Although the customer acquisition cost varies from channel to channel. On digital, different, you know, Google is different, Facebook different, networks are different, all different. As I said, most of the traffic are organic. It's that way it's a different one.
All right. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Samir Padikar from ICICI Direct. Please go ahead.
Sir, thank you for the opportunity. When we said that double-digit growth in FY 2024, whether it's a revenue or a billing growth for FY 2024 you are referring to?
Sorry, was not so clear. Is it the FY 2024 revenue?
Whether it is revenue I was asking whether the FY 2024 growth that we are referring to double-digit, is it a billing growth or a revenue growth we are referring to?
It will grow.
It will grow. Okay, sure. The growth will be driven from sort of paid subscribers or ATV also will take some contribution over there. Can we say ATV decline for this year is maybe a bottom, and then we're probably looking at some recovery in the ATV going forward? The strategies will lever both in terms of paid subscription as well as ATV for FY 2024?
ATV may be at a similar level. You know, it's difficult to say because our strategy is to, you know, continuously the conversion. That way, I think our focus on drive the top-line growth and offer the right price point to the customer who can convert. There's also a new offerings like Jodii, which is a much lower price point. Jodii, we are selling at INR 990 compared to the BharatMatrimony, INR 5,000. It's a combination of multiple things. I don't think that the ATV, a combination of this, you know, right sizing plus Jodii and multiple things. I don't think ATV is going to increase in any bit better on all this.
Yeah. Just want to add also, if you see last year, we had a very strong volume growth, which is about 11.1%, almost close to 1 million subscriptions that happened last year. For us, ATV is more an outcome of all the strategies that we do. We don't have a particular target as such. You know, we don't work on targets. We just say that, you know, for this segment, for this market, every day we look at the data and then we decide based on our strategic initiatives. It's more an outcome rather than a target.
Okay. Do we have any internal target in mind that from the current subscription level to reach maybe 1.5 million in maybe 2-3 years time? Is it a fair assumption that the growth will be driven by paid subscription going forward, not the ATV one?
Yeah, I think, yeah.
Okay.
That's a fair assumption.
Do we also see a recovery in margins because the margins are from year of 2, 3, 4 years level, low level currently. As the growth comes in, can we expect a recovery in margins in FY 2024 and on, going beyond?
Yeah, absolutely. That's why I told the Q1 itself expecting a profit increase by 300 basis points.
I think overall for the year as well, we expect a strong profitability growth as compared to FY 2023. That is also because like Murugavel explained, our revenue is going to be, you know, our good billings in quarter four is going to translate into good revenue in quarter one. With marketing costs being constant-
We will get a very good run rate in Q1, which will set the base for a strong profitability growth in FY 2024.
Sure. In southern markets, I think we referred a few in calls that the market share for us is somewhere more than 80%. Does it, the market share remains at this level or we are taking some competition in our core south market share?
No, I think is that, see, not lot of information is public. I think we can focus on our growth and, you know, you know, only one of the company information is public. We think sort of with this growth we'll gain our market share, but it's very difficult to say.
Sure. Sure. That's it from me then. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone wishing to ask a question, may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Nitin Sharma from MC Pro Research. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. First of all, I would like to understand what were the active profiles in the FY 20 23?
Active profiles. We are not sharing the profile information. Okay. I think.
Some understanding would be helpful probably, how much were in, within a range, how much, the profile were as a % of active profiles?
That's it. Yeah. Thank you. You know, because I think we stopped publishing that information, so for the competitive reasons. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Secondly, please help us understand how this year has been in the North Indian market or maybe market beyond your core area. Also some color on Jodii app performance, how it has been since the launch.
Since for us that nothing has changed across the market. We continue to be a dominant player in South, East and to some extent in the West. North continues to remain to be a competitive market. That's a long-term plans and we are working on strategy to gain market share North. As a Jodii is really early stage because we getting some male profiles. We saw getting female was a challenge. We announced the strategy that, you know, free for females. We are giving them contact free. That's really still in the early stage and trying to work out things and so yeah.
Okay.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Sonal from Prescient Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question again. I wanted to understand from more competitive perspective from marketing is this, have you seen like the funding winter actually impacting the potential of your competition to market in a non-disciplined manner, which used to be the case earlier? That's the first question. Secondly, also wanted to understand like the potential of the Astro-Vision business, which you said turned EBITDA positive. Anything which you can share subjectively there would also help us to understand how that business is doing and what is happening with it. Thank you.
My apologies, Sonal. Can you repeat the question again? I don't know. Somebody, that.
Sure. First question on whether, competition in marketing...
I. Can just if you don't mind please repeat again because I don't know?
Sure, sir. Yeah, am I audible, sir, now? Is it okay?
Yeah. Yeah.
I want to ask you, have you seen the competitive intensity in marketing-
Yeah.
By your competition go down because of the funding winter? It used to be nonsensical earlier and therefore, I think people were like earning INR 100 bucks and spending INR 150 bucks in marketing.
Yeah. Understood.
Hence wanted to understand that from a subjective perspective broadly.
Okay. Okay. That's one, the competition. What is second question? I understood first question that marketing spend. What's second?
The second question was any subjective outlook guidance for growth for the Astro-Vision business, which you mentioned turned positive, EBITDA positive.
What business?
Astro-Vision business.
Astro-Vision business. Okay. Okay. That's okay. Understood. That's it. Yeah, Astro-Vision we can talk later. Yeah, yeah. In terms of the marketing spend, I don't think, you know, because I don't think that's going to really change. The funding winter is going to have any impact on the marketing spend by competitor. By the way, they decide to, you know, reduce their marketing spend. You know, I think, we don't see that's happening. They are, I don't think that's a possibility. That's not going to impact on the funding winter. It might be not going to impact on the marketing spend. Again, depends on, it'll be depend on their marketing strategy. In terms of Astro-Vision, yeah, it's a listed company and.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Astro-Vision has grown very strongly last year, very significant, good double-digit growth in revenues. Also because of some of their new initiatives and new lines of business that they have ventured into. Therefore, you know, with those initiatives, in quarter four they've become profitable. They want to continue a similar trend in the coming year as well and continue to remain profitable. We have invested only about 56% stake in the business. Therefore there is no consolidation at a line-to-line level. It is only a share of profit or loss from the associate which we disclose in our financials.
Got it, sir. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Saksham . Shriman from Creso Espinol. Please go ahead. Saksham, your line is on the talk mode. Please go ahead.
Hello?
Yeah. Yes, yes, Saksham.
Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I have 2 questions. The 1st one, what is your strategy to increase the market share in North India? 2nd, that, are we looking for any inorganic opportunities to increase growth?
What are the strategy growth North and Mark India? I think it's a combination of, you know, I think the typical strategy will be product promotions and, you know, other strategies because. Again, it's a long term. Okay. We don't see anything going to change substantially in the short term. We continue to, you know, work on the ways to increase the market share. That's gonna happen. I don't think this strategy is going to get us the market share. We need to continue to work on all these four strategy product, price, promotions and all that. In terms of inorganic growth, we don't see any opportunity at this point in time.
We follow anything, yeah, we continue evaluate for anything comes.
Okay. Okay. Got it.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Banerjee from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Santhosh. One question from my side. In terms of the competitive landscape overall, right, what would you think has happened to the share of the third, fourth player in the segment?
The market is largely, you know, sort of 2.5 player, that kind of thing. No fourth player. I think there are a lot of long tail of, you know, small companies which are very, very insignificant.
That's why we see the market being played at this point of time. Market share, again, what is I don't see anything a significant change. They continue to be a very dominant player in most of the market, except north, where we are fighting with other players. I think that's the significant change.
I understood. Would it be fair to say that the top two players are controlling more of the market than they were last year?
Yeah, I think so.
Understood. Now coming to the advertising part, right? You are guiding for flattish trajectory year on, right? So, what will that mean? I mean, so that flattish trajectory, will it mean that you will stop incremental, you know, investments into the marriage services segment, or will the marriage services segment continue to grow at the current trend?
Okay. In terms of marketing trends for... Currently, we see that matchmaking be operating at a similar level. Until otherwise, you know, something changes where we see some sub note, where they need to invest in some opportunity, we'll decide that one at them. At this point, our outlook is that the market will be at this level, and that will contribute to profit. That's on the, on the matchmaking side. When it comes to wedding services, wedding services, again, we, as I told you, have launched a new website of Mandap.com, leveraging the WeddingWire platform. We are changing some packaging, offering process. This year we want to set right some of the underlying things and drive some efficiency, get to the, to the break even that come at the cost of, you know, high growth.
I think one to our objective is to settle the break-even level sometime this year. Okay? With that break-even, with setting right some of the fundamentals and foundation, then we can start earning the growth from that onward.
Understood. Have you done any surveys with your customers trying to understand why they have stuck to Matrimony?
Stickiness. Okay.
Okay.
If you look at most of the market where we are a dominant player, it's about, it's literally, I would say that our brands are synonymous with category. Millions of people got married. Strong network effect, strong brand. It's more like it's a brand equal to category. That's the kind of thing. In fact, the kind of feeling I have in because I operate in Tamil Nadu, it's anyone who's sort of not found a life on their own, it should be on our platform, or they found a life on our platform. I think that's the kind of thing I'm getting of.
Got it. In that case, why is it not possible for you to raise, you know, your ticket prices, at least for your flagship offerings?
In fact, when we started the things, it was INR 300. It increased over a period of time. I think we also feel that, you know, while we have done some price increase, okay, slightly, but it's been very, very marginal, okay? Just INR 100 things. And again, there are things we discount also because as Sushanth said, the price is more of outcome rather than their desired thing and all that thing. So for us, there are multiple customers, multiple segment, and, well, that's a good question, why not increase the price?
We believe that, sometime that, you know, we already at a reasonable price, if you want to further increase the price, probably can do it, maybe at a later stage. At this point, I think the price for our offering is, I think good enough price. There are other packages also for customer to go for IM packages. Yeah, we believe that at this point in time, the price we are offering it's a reasonable price.
Understood.
Yeah. While We don't want to that customer start feeling that, I think I'll probably put it differently. You know, because of the success stories, we are dominant. We don't want a customer start feeling that, we are overcharging them now, okay. I think, that's also a thing. Again, the pricing anyways is something subjective also. For us, I think that's one of the things driving us not to increase the prices.
I get that, sir. just... Okay. I have been, you know, talking to people, and from what I gather is, say from pre-COVID to now.
Mm-hmm.
the average ticket size of getting married overall, right? That has gone up by more than 20%, right? in 2, 3 years' time. Whereas, you know, proportionally, I think our ASPs would not have gone up, which is why I was coming from. I mean, which is where I was coming from on this question. Is that observation correct, sir?
I think what Sushanth said or what is our commercial strategy, because we are driving that conversion. Look at our paid subscription moving on a double-digit basis. I think it's important that people should go for a paid membership, use the package and see the benefits. That also may result in the renewal and other benefits. While obviously people are spending a lot of money on wedding and the matchmaking is a small part of overall the expense on, if you have to consider wedding as overall matchmaking will wedding expense. For us, the pricing it's the more of the right, the different segment, different customers. Even we have to give discount and convert, I think we think that's the right thing to do.
We are driving overall the paid, the conversions. It's a much better strategy rather than driving the only the ATV now. I would rather the more people going for paid transaction, even if the lesser ATV is better compared to higher ATV and that's coming at a cost of paid transaction.
Understood. Just one last question. I know, you have shared the number of, you know, 10 million marriages happening in India, right? That data is a little, you know, outdated in that sense. Have you done any fresh work on that? Would you be able to comment what is going to be... I mean, is there a volume increase that we can see in the marriage segment?
See the India population from 1.3 billion now to 1.4 billion, we are talking about some 6%, 7% increase. 10 million-12 million weddings probably would have become 10.5 million-12.5 million weddings, which we're talking about, 5% increase sort of things.
Also the demographic dividend is there, right? Which should actually accelerate it further.
Yeah. No. Yeah. That again, it's all... It has a gradual thing to over a period of time. It doesn't have that, you know, near-term impact at all. Yeah. Just India is a demographic dividend. Yeah, we are large population, but all the people belong to the less than 35 group. Yes, it has the younger population, yeah, the gradual impact on overall business.
I understand. That's all from me, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone wishing to ask a question, may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Sameer Bhardwaj from ICICI Direct. Please go ahead.
Sir, thank you for the follow-up opportunity. You said we launched couple of products in this quarter. I just missed that. Which products you were talking about referring to?
It's not a product, it's more of a differentiated offering. See Jodii, as we are telling, we are not getting the females. We announced the strategy of free contacts of female. That was done. We hope that will get some female athletes moving. Elite also, we also introduced a success model. Success model means that people can pay a basic service fee for 1 year. If the marriage happens, they can pay the success fee. So far we are only a service model of a 6-month service model or 12-month service model. We announced the success model is for the 1 year, I think very basic subscription, and the customer will long tenure of our service. Only if the marriage happens through us, they pay the success fee.
It's making it a sort of, little attractive for people, when Elite people, to sign up itself.
Okay. Okay. The second question is about wage hike. Which typically quarter we normally give a wage hike to our employees? Will it be a similar level of last year? It will be little on a higher or lesser side?
Wage hike will be effective in quarter one, and typically it is in the 6%-7% sort of a range.
Okay. Thank you. That's it from this end. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. We have one question from an investor. Could you guide us through scenarios if such high marketing spends have happened in the past? How did the scenario play out? How long did it take for normalization? What was the brand benefits that accrued to money spent for marketing in the past phase?
See the high level of marketing spend today is also to some extent necessitated by the increasing competitive activities. Tomorrow, if the competitive intensity comes down, our marketing spend also will come down. When from the impact of the brand, spending, you know, been spending for the last 23 years, today, as I told you, the brand has become sort of standard category because definitely the spend has also helped and being added in the category. I think definitely the advertisement has helped the brand to reach at this level of strength. Again, marketing is people always think about. I know the 50% marketing, what's which 50%. It's a TV marketing spend, yes. Is it important for a category? Yes.
This level of marketing spend that told you the different level of competitive scenario, we would have not spent so much of money. To come back, just to answer your question, if the spending is required, yes. This level of spending required at this point of time, yes, but in the future it may come down now.
Thank you, sir. A reminder to the participants, anyone wishing to ask a question, may please press star and one. Participants, if you wish to ask a question, you may please press star and one. There are no further questions, I now hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
I think from Keshav or somebody want to ask a question. Keshav is in the queue. He can start.
Yes, sir. He just come in the queue. Mr. Keshav Garg from Countercyclical PMS. Your line is unmuted, please go ahead.
Thank you very much for providing this opportunity. Sir, I wish you best of the luck. Sir, I want to thank you for the share buyback you did last year. Sir, only one suggestion, sir, that we gave too high a premium in the share buyback. It defeats one of the purposes of the share buyback which is to increase the earning per share. For the next time, sir, kindly do share buyback at maximum 20% premium to the market price, sir, so that we can buy more number of shares and extinguish them so that the earning per share can increase going forward. That's all from my side, thank you very much.
Thank you, Keshav. Thanks for your suggestion. I appreciate that.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone wishing to ask a question, may please press star and one.
Okay. If no further questions, we can close the call now.
Sure sir. Would you like to add any closing remarks?
No. I think we want to appreciate and thank everyone for joining the call and look forward to connecting to you all again.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference call. We thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.