Arranged Marriages in India | Business | Sarthak Ahuja

How many people in India have an arranged marriage?
There are 280 Mn unmarried Indians between the ages of 20 to 39… that’s 20% of the country’s population.
Back in the 60s, almost 95% of the marriages used to be arranged…
Over time, the percentage has reduced, and also reduces with higher levels of education.
But despite the progress, 90% of marriages in India are still arranged, and 87% of those who have a Masters Degree.
The romantic affairs you see in college make up only 3% of the final knots tied.
There are over a thousand matrimonial apps in India based on regional preferences, but three players dominate the market.
And only 6% of the arranged marriages happen through these apps.
Bharat Matrimony holds 60% market share, and has Rs 480 crores of annual top line. With a ~15% EBITDA.
And how many people meet using dating apps?
Almost 16% of urban married couples… not total, only urban.
Assuming 30% urbanization rate for this purpose, dating apps are giving tough competition to matrimonial apps in India.
With India’s wedding industry being 2X that of the US…
An average Indian household spends 3X their annual income on a wedding…
Almost 2X the amount of spend they make on the child’s education from pre-marriage to graduation.
A huge number of wedding based startups got funded in 2014-2016… and seems like that wave may come again soon starting 2024.
Especially in areas of wedding planning… where only 15% of weddings are today offered to wedding planners.
They expect to take weddings of spends above Rs 1 crore and make 10-15% in fees and commissions.
But with India’s capacity to spend more on weddings, the country can possibly take an app that helps with such services as a marketplace for smaller weddings.
There exist a couple, but none so big to have disrupted the market hugely.
And I believe it will be built on the back of user generated content, or portfolio listing for videographers, decorators, caterers, choreographers, stylists - quite like Wed Me Good… but of a much larger scale.
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A Chartered Accountant with about 10 years of experience in areas of Tax Advisory, Startup Consulting, Fundraising, Audits, Deal Advisory, Business Modelling and contract CFO services.
Winner of the ISB Young Leader Award 2017 and the Best All Rounder, PGP Class of '17, Sarthak has also been published about in the leading financial newspapers such as The Financial Express as possibly the youngest Indian to have completed the courses of CA, CS and CMA along with a graduate degree in Financial & Investment Analysis from University of Delhi, all by the age of 23 years.

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