I am not sure about marketing spends at an absolute level as management is indicating that they are going to invest in areas where they are not very strong now. But, they also indicate that there are many pockets where the spends are excessive and returns not commensurate to spends, where it may rationalise. Even Jeevansathi has indicated that.
Sorry, I have no view on manyjobs.
The idea doesnât apply to matrimony platforms because most people just marry once and then uninstall the app. So chasing user growth/network effects will be a continuous process.
The company can do some operational streamlining by using adopting AI in their product.
disc: Have a tracking position.
My view of Q1 results-
Billings have grown from 117.5 crores to 126.2 crores. (7.4% y-o-y)
Number of paid subscription added remained flat.(-0.8% y-o-y)
So billings growth was led by ATV increase i.e. from 4395 to 4775. (8.6% y-o-y)
Albeit company has grown slower than its competitor Jeevansathi which saw 36% y-o-y growth, to 35 crores and turned cashflow positive of 6 crores mainly achieving so by slowing marketing spends. Spends down 21% y-o-y. As base is low compared to Matrimony and operating in different geography need to watch for coming quarters is whether the growth momentum is sustained entrenching itself as clear leader in region.
Increase in billing growth will be reflected in the revenue and profits for Matrimony in upcoming quarters as most of it is received in advance so can be seen from jump in deferred revenue from 72 crores to 83 crores. Thus Revenue and PAT doesnât truly reflect the increase in billings.
Growth in billings albeit flat marketing spends shows that competitive intensity has decreased and marketing spends as % of revenue can decrease in coming years. Further it can give room to spend in markets matrimony were not spending earlier such as North and other new ventures.
However scaling up of other ventures remain key monitorable mainly the serious dating platform, wedding services and Blue collar Jobs initiative.
Billings can touch 500 crores in current year which will be key monitorable and have to see in coming quarters whether company can potentially increase the growth momentum.
Disclosure- Biased and Invested
In this era of nuclear families and constant ego battles, instances of 2nd marriages is increasing a lot even though its unfortunate. In case of 1st marriages vs 2nd marriages, usage of online matrimony apps is considerable high vs usage of a traditional marriage broker due to privacy issues , relatives pressure etc⊠that also may add growth even though not quantifiable . But this unfortunate trend is only going to increase considering the current society situation
As the competitive intensity is reduced, marketing spends shall come down for sure. And some time in far future , non serious players shall sell away their matrimony biz to focussed player like matrimony.com ⊠this is also a probability if one takes a very long term view
Currently it seems like the market and investors have written off this company.
Presented #matrimony on valuepickr Mumbai meet on 15 Sep25
Few steps mgmt can take on this solid franchise with pricing power to unlock value
wind up some of the non-scalable LOSS MAKING NON-SCALABLE biz(s) it is incubating, will add 15-18 cr/yr to PAT
Reduce ad-spends in-line with what other competitors are doing
Be open to M&A considering dominant market share are mutually exclusive between matrimony & jeevansaathi
matrimony_20250914.pdf (723.0 KB)
Capital allocation risk- ( Divorsification thru startup investing)
Recently they started showing interest in investing in startups and made a new board member appointment to support that. This again is an uncertainty as it shall have its own learning curve and in the process cash burn. Result of the same may be visible only after 10 years. So cash available in the company and cash to generated by the company may be at risk. I think company hasnât put out clear capital allocation policy changes in the light of this new development which is required for valuing the company in the long term. Hope the company puts out clear policy regarding the capital allocation as it plays major in a cash generating low growth scenario for any company. If this risk is not addressed, company may not be in a position to buy competitors when opportunity arises in future whenever it is.
Low growth-( 3x volume growth in 25 years)
As I have seen a recent interview of founder stating his goal is to just triple registered users in next 25 years from current 8 million registered to 25 million users . This translates to very low growth and hence capital allocation becomes much more important.
Matrimony is doing its 3rd buyback in the last 4 years. And every time, the promoter has increased his stake by not participating.
Added to it is the recent purchase of shares by the promoter through open market. During Sep-Nov 2025, he has bought 2.89 lakh shares (~1.3% of the equity). Thatâs a very important point to be kept in mind while analysing Matrimony.
22564_MCL_Postal_ballot_notice.pdf (618.8 KB)
Check page 15 for purchase details
This is a very positive sign by the Promoter. Gives a lot of comfort to retail share holders.
Howerver the main question is growth is stagnating, OPM from near 20% few years ago, has come down to 10%. This has to change for rerating.
It seems the management is pushing for Growth . Thorough Channel checks and scuttlebut done have also confirmed this. Over the last few quarters quite a number of business heads have been hired to drive overall segmental growth (the same can be verified through LinkedIn ). To name a few they have hired new people to drive assisted matrimony, manyjobs , mandap and wedding services
It also looks like they have a major growth vector in manyjobs . Even though it is still in nascent beta testing stage, the management commentary shows confidence in this new vertical. They plan to take it pan India in a yearâs time. The business head of this business seems seasoned.
Management has not been SHY to state if some new ideas are not working like wedding loans which they cut losses immediately .this is a good sign. This is not the case with manyjobs . It seems like they have found a growth driver ex the core business.
Revenue growth for the last couple of years have been subpar. Expenses in advertising and employee have risen much faster than revenue growth. Infact there has literally been no revenue growth but expenses and risen by more than 50% , advertising expenses nearly doubled.
Advertising and employee expenses we should more or less expect at this same range. This year we should expect adverting at 180± crs and employee expenses at 140±crs. Donât think these expenses will come down . Marketing and employee expenses have peaked for the near future give or take 5+% more .
What we should really forward to is some good revenue growth considering all the efforts visible on ground . There is massive operating leverage to be unlocked . Revenue of 600++ crores will lead to disproportionate PBT and NET PROFIT over a 8-10 quarter period. Icing will be if manyjobs takes off.
Invested and biased.
The latest shareholding pattern reveals that the promoter company has bought shares from the open market also over and above the buyback.
Yes, the promoter has increased his stake by approx 3.5% from last quarter! Amount invested for increase in stake is upward of 30 Cr! This speaks a lot.
However, if we see who has reduced the stake, it is primarily Nalanda Equity fund and the MIT fund. So this brings me to the question, did the promoter buy the shares to avoid the share price to go further down during the selling spree by the FIIs, or is he buying the shares because he thinks it is undervalued by the market and expects good results going forward?
Nalanda and MIT tendered their shares in buyback , the promoter did not buy from them .
In the case of Nalanda , they have done a wise thing for 2 reasons . If they did not tender their shares in the buyback thier holding would have crossed 10% , which is not allowed according to sebi laws and secondly by tendering their shares Nalanda acquisition cost for their stake in matrimony has reduced to R. 350. Its a win win for them and they still have 8.90%.
As far as MIT is concerned , they have also tendered in the buyback and reduced their only cost.
I donât think their selling affects their trust and position in the company
The promoter acquired the shares sold by the pudumjee trust in addition to buyback .
At the end of the day this is a hated , boring company that people have written off due to lack of growth , which I think will change sooner or later.
this is about a 1000 crs revenue industry and the net profit is probably close to 35 crs as of last year. matrimony is probably 50% of industry revenue and may be close to or even greater than 100 percent of the industry profits.
the issue re the lack of profit is hyper competition and the structure of the industry - than the fact that there is a natural attrition of customers. natural attrition exists in many industries - but they seem to do fine in terms of the 2nd and 3rd player making profits.
it was a 3 player market may be 10/20 years back. there is no new player of any significance for the last 20 odd years. that should count for something. and you wont probably find this in other such industries which face a similar natural attrition.
there are new categories. dating, serious dating etc. these new categories also remain very small. but no new player targeting the same category.
the main culprit is jeevansaathi. they have never made any money/profits. in its entire history (!!) they are the ones who started this phase of hyper-competition way back in 2018, i think at one point they were spending more on advertising than their total revenues. it could just be just a coincidence that they were blocked from buying westbridges 44 percent stake in shaadi in 2017. anyways this phase has stopped or has been paused (for now).
this is the classic dollar auction problem. their only hope was shaadi folds. but despite all hope relative market shares remain the same over the last 10 years. while jeevansathi have just added a few 100s to the crores of cumulative losses. but its a rounding error for sanjeev and team.
You hit the nail right where it is!!
Even despite this parabolic hyper competition by jeevansathi matrimony has stayed itâs course . They have sacrificed their P/L for that last couple of years to starve of this hyper competition but kept their balance sheet pristine and market share intact.
Jeevansathi has been posting 20% growth the last couple quarters but this is not growth 
, itâs a result of them changing their business model and then flipping back to the old one. Plus at some point their growth will slow , how much can two players ( shaadi also) grow in the same northern market where they are dominant.
There will be NO new players in this industry.
This is aâ WINNER TAKES ALL âindustry .
at some point existing players will fold.
in this context of hyper competition, matrimony still makes money. and more importantly it does so consistently.
in the last 4 years, the company has generated operating cash flows of roughly 225 crs, off this it has sent out roughly 280 crs (225 buybacks + 55 dividend). This is close to a 9% p.a. dividend yield at the current marketcap.
but, given the promoter is not tendering, this is almost a 14% div+buyback yield. (not exactly! as there is a slight dilution as you tender.)
even after this, the company holds cash worth over 300 crs.
this is being priced like this business is a melting ice-cube. may be its going to be disrupted by ai. or may be the norms change - may be lesser number of people marry. or people will only use dating platforms to find partners. or that the client attrition rate is close to 100 percent on a yearly basis.
it is said, that about there are about 1 crs weddings in india. that is 2 crs individuals marry. matrimony reports that they have about 10 lkh paying subscribers. just taking that number at face value - thats 5 percent of total people who marry.
but the 10 lacs is not the actual unique user count. this is the number of transactions. so if someone buys 4 quarterly subscription a year he counts as 4 and not 1. so that 5 percent is actually overstated, and so at a guess matrimony share is 2-3 percent of people who marry.
at 3% implies that 97% people donât use or pay for this service. dating becoming much bigger/lesser people getting married and more people use matrimony can all be true at the same time.
ai is lesser of a threat to matrimony than its for naukri or indiamart. high attrition is actually one reason for this.
anyways, i dont see this as a melting ice cube.
what happened in fy26 is important to understand to answer the âwhy nowâ bit.
on the surface fy26 looks like a bad year operationally, subs are down from 1m to 0.96m, revenue is flat and profit is down about 25%.
so if you thought this is a dying business - fy26 just confirms this.
but something changed in fy26. traditionally almost all the subscriptions were quarterly. they decided to change the mix fy26 - now about 10 percent of subscriptions are yearly.
firstly this overstates the decrease in subscriber counts. as a subscriber who took 4 quarterly subscriptions counts at 4, and now a yearly subscriber counts as 1.
but more importantly - this has meant that there is an incremental 30 crs of deferred revenue tailwind - which flows into fy27. all things equal, given the operating leverage - this should boost the profit numbers by a lot for fy27.
how much is a lot? this is the ceo in the q4 26 call.
âWe are highly confident in delivering robust financial performance, anticipating either doubledigit billing growth or high single-digit growth in billing, double-digit revenue growth and more than doubling of profit compared to Q1 of last year.â
âdoublingâ of profits!
the cfo is more precise - doubling PAT.
âConsidering the positive developments as explained by Muruga, we expect the PAT to more than double in Q1 compared to Q1 of previous year.â
we will find out soon enough.
