- The company is aggressively pursuing monetisation in its matrimonial business
Debasis Mohapatra
Bengaluru, 29 September 2024
Info Edge is aggressively monetising various features of ‘Jeevansathi’ in its bid to make the subsidiary achieve breakeven in the currently financial year.
The company has started charging various features of matchmaking site, Jeevansathi some of which were free earlier.
“In Jeevansathi, we are targeting breakeven this year. So, we would like to get as close to breakeven as possible. At the same time, we’re targeting high growth because we’ve started monetizing more aggressively. We had gone free for a couple of years. We continue to be freemium. Chat is free but we have launched more features and more functionalities to help monetize better. So, we would want to get as close to breakeven as possible this year in Jeevansathi,” Hitesh Oberoi, CEO & MD of Info Edge has said during the first quarter (Q1FY25) analyst call.
Jeevansathi’s revenue grew around 35% year-on-year basis in the first quarter ended June 2024.
During this period, while billings grew by 35% to Rs 25 crore, Jeevansathi’s revenue also grew by 35% to Rs 26 crore.
Operating expenses were reduced 25% Y-o-Y (year-on-year) driven by a huge reduction in marketing costs which was down 45% Y-o-Y. Importantly, operating losses were reduced by 88% to Rs 2 crore, while cash loss was Rs 4 crore, which was an improvement of 79% over the previous period a year ago.
“The business continues to focus on monetization. We made several features on the app free a couple of years ago and now we are back to focusing on monetization with new features launched in Q1, such as super interest and handpicked matches gaining good traction,” Oberoi has said.
The management has also said that paid products launched a few quarters back following the free chat implementation, have been gaining traction. The company will further improve matching recommendations through investment in technology and related areas.
“Key metrics like acceptances and two-way chats on the platform continue to show healthy growth. The business will continue to launch new products in the coming quarters… Some of these new products will feature exclusive new functionalities for paying users. The chat functionality will continue to remain free on the platform,” the CEO & MD of Info Edge has said.
Share price of Info Edge closed 2.46% up at Rs 8,143 on Friday in NSE.
