How to do Love and Dating Business for 1.3 billion people?
In India, there are two ways to get married, depending on how
conservative you or your family are: you can ask your parents to arrange a
blind date, or you can find someone yourself.
Only those who can make their own decisions and are willing
to break through themselves will choose free love. After all, in small towns in
India, dating is a very rare social phenomenon and a shameful behavior.
What is the condition of Dating on One night Stands?
For one-night stands, there are voices of opposition
everywhere; in some cities or regions, if someone knows about a date, it can
put oneself in a very dangerous situation-being harassed by the police or even
being "honorly killed" (male members use "defend the
family" On the grounds of "honor", they killed female family
members who believed they had an "improper relationship" with a man).
What is the situation of dating apps in the love market of India?
But despite such great cultural resistance, the Indian dating
market is still expanding. According to Statista's 2020 online dating service
report, there are approximately 38 million dating users in India, ranked in
terms of income, and India is second only to the United States and China.
The epidemic has also had a miraculous effect on the
promotion of dating apps. For several months, the quarantine continued to blow
this wave from urban households to smaller towns, helping dating apps to
penetrate the market that was previously considered difficult to handle.
Indian companies all want to seize this opportunity to use
their unique Indian cultural characteristics to reach people who are eager to
date and make friends, except those in the city, especially those Indians who
do not speak English.
1. Finding love in "New India"
In India, online dating is a fairly new business.
The local dating site only appeared in 2013, and the trend of
dating apps only started after the arrival of Tinder in 2014. Since then,
dating apps like Bumble, Happn, and Hinge, which are popular all over the
world, have also become popular in India.
What is the condition of LGBT dating and its apps in India?
With the decriminalization of homosexuality in the 2018 India
Act, LGBTQ (sexual minorities) dating software like Grindr has entered India,
and the most mainstream Tinder and Bumble have also begun to add features that
allow users to find same-sex couples. However, it is still very difficult to
reach areas outside the city.
Although India’s culture is very diverse, mainstream apps still use English as the interface language. Although only 12% of Indians speak English, English has become the lingua franca of India. However, dating and dating app companies do not think this is a hindrance.
TrulyMadly Homepage Introduction
Snehil Khanor, the co-founder and CEO of Indian dating
software TrulyMadly, said: “People may not speak English well, but they can
understand the functions of the App in English.” TrulyMadly is currently only
available in English, but App developers are generally It is believed that in
most cases, users can transliterate or write in other languages in Roman
characters.
Apps are also working hard to adapt to the special needs of the Indian market. For many years, Indian dating sites have been designed for people seeking serious relationships.
Sites like Shaadi.com and Matrimony.com
are for people to find lifelong partners and arrange marriages for their
children. Matrimony is India's largest matchmaking website with approximately 5
million active users.
Able Joseph, co-founder of dating software Aisle, said: “When
Western dating software enters the Indian market, they naturally think that
apps that provide one-night stand matching can do the same thing as serious
dating software.” So when Tinder came to India, it was relatively The
conservative parent company Match.com did not enter the market together.
In 2014, Joseph founded Aisle, a "strong purpose"
dating software. It is neither as casual as Tinder nor as serious as a
matchmaking website. Instead, it gives future brides and grooms more autonomy
and a more relaxed and independent atmosphere.
2. Small towns, great potential for dating apps
Indian cultural customs also hinder dating apps from entering small towns. Many women fear that these dating apps will also bring moral condemnation. In small towns, people are likely to meet people who know themselves or their family members on the App.
Due to the resistance of Indian
culture to dating and premarital sex, women are more likely to incur serious
consequences, and false personal information and phishing in the App are also
common, further reducing safety.
In March 2020, after India announced its home isolation policy, a consultant Tejveer Kalsi returned from Gurgaon to his home in Lucknow. When he first arrived home, he was stunned by the low popularity of dating apps. This is at least a medium-sized city with a population of 2.9 million.
"Many young people are reluctant to expose too much personal
information. The main concern is privacy, because in many small cities in
India, dating apps are still uncharted territory."
Despite this, the social isolation caused by the epidemic has
successfully brought many people together through dating apps.
India’s quarantine policy during the epidemic is very strict,
which also opens up the development of dating apps in small cities such as
Ranchi (population 1.1 million), Bhubaneshwar (population 840,000) and Guwahati
(population 1.1 million). Made a breakthrough.
The same is the dating software TrulyMadly founded in 2014.
Last year, its revenue in small cities increased by 10 times compared with the
same period last year.
TrulyMadly positions itself as a strong-purpose dating app, with the goal of "matching your partner on your terms". In order to achieve this slogan, it has a luxurious paid version that expands the scope of user matching.
This version costs $5.98 a week, which greatly narrows the crowd
who want serious dates.
Aisle has customized a more comprehensive profile page specifically for Indian users, with a feature that allows single people to decide in advance whether they are willing to accept matches. Joseph, co-founder of Aisle, said that these issues are based on sensitive Indian customs. "
For example, many Indians believe in astrology and constellations,
which is also a piece of information we provide," he said.
What is marriage condition in conservative families of India?
These are the keys to entering the Indian market. Marriage is
often seen as a union of two families, not as individuals, Joseph said.
"These cultures are deeply ingrained, especially those brought up by more
conservative families. For example, Indian families believe that finding a
partner in their own ethnic group is very important," he said. "Apps
like Aisle can assist you in these subconscious decisions. "
Aisle’s "One by Two" Indian dating advt
Aisle also shot a series of commercials tribute to
"Indian dating". For example, "one by two" soup share
(sharing a bowl of soup) is a tribute to the money-saving technique used by the
poor old-fashioned large families in India in the past.
Conclusion
For dating companies, if they are simply making money from
urban people trapped in their hometowns during the epidemic, this gold rush
does not seem to last forever, but this is at least an opportunity to break
into the potential market.
According to Statista's 2020 data, although India contributes
the third highest income in the world in terms of online dating, the
penetration rate of dating apps in India is only 2.23%, ranking 111th in the
world. The challenge for Indian dating apps to break into small towns has just
begun.
They hope that further cultural evolution can help. The
constant changes in attitudes towards love and marriage may eventually remove
the "shame" of dating and making friends in the hearts of the vast
majority of conservatives in India. TrulyMadly's Khanor said with a smile:
“Marriage and love have always been just needed in India, but dating and making
friends is taboo.” He hopes that Indian parents and their children of
marriageable age will watch Netflix shows, eat in the same restaurants, and
shop online like young people.
Perhaps only in this way, the social transformation of dating
and making friends will slowly succeed.
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