Good evening, everyone. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I would like to welcome you all to Q1 FY27 earnings call of Matrimony.com.

From the company, we have Mr. Murugavel Janakiraman, MD and CEO.

The call will begin with the brief management remarks, followed by Q&A session. I would like to hand over the call to Mr.

Janakiraman, sir, for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Jayram Shetty.

Good evening, everyone. During our last interaction, we indicated that profit for the quarter will be more than double of that last year.

I'm pleased to report that we have delivered on that guidance, with PAT increasing by 127% year-on-year. In Q1, on a consolidated basis, we achieved a billing of Rs.

136.0 crore, a growth of 7.8% quarter-over-quarter and 7.8% year-on-year. Revenue is at 130.5 crore, a growth of 11.7% quarter-over-quarter and 13.2% year-on-year.

Key highlights for the matchmaking business in quarter one are as follows: Billing at Rs. 135.3 crore, a growth of 7.9% quarter-over-quarter and 8.0% year-on-year.

Revenue at Rs. 109.5 crore, a growth of 11.7% quarter-over-quarter and 13.6% year-on-year.

Matchmaking EBITDA reached Rs. 34.9 crore, which is 26.9%.

Actually, there's a difference between the billing and GAAP revenue of around 5-plus crore. If the billing be the same as the revenue, the EBITDA would have touched even 40 crore.

I think matchmaking has reached a certain level of threshold in terms of EBITDA margins. Anyway, the increase in billing will benefit in the subsequent quarters.

We added 2.72 lakhs paid subscription during the quarter, a growth of 15.9% quarter-over-quarter and 3.7% year-on-year. ATV for the matchmaking business dropped at 6.7% on a quarter-on-quarter and grew by 4.2% year-on-year.

We facilitated over 25,500 success stories during the quarter. Now coming to the other business or marriage services business and other businesses, billing were Rs.

74 lakhs, a growth of 0.5% quarter-over-quarter and decline of 13.8% year-on-year. Revenue was Rs.

96 lakhs, a growth of 13.1% quarter-over-quarter, decline of 24.3% year-on-year. EBITDA-level losses for quarter was 3.8 crore as compared to loss of 5.7 crore in the last quarter.

However, we expect the new other initiative, wedding services, the growth momentum will kick off this quarter and scale up in the coming quarter. Definitely see the growth momentum happening there as well.

On the billing and the revenue outlook for quarter two, matchmaking billing and revenue will have a double-digit growth year-on-year basis in quarter two, and the profit also be triple-digit in quarter two as well. Marriage services billing are expected to be higher than quarter one.

We are also doing a lot with AI. We are using AI in many areas.

We're using AI in automation, service improvements, product improvements, and driving efficiencies. There's a lot of work happening on the AI side as well, which is helping us to drive efficiency and also improving the experience which we are providing to the customers.

Let me hand over to Sushanth Swain, our VP Finance, to comment on the key corporate highlight for the quarter and the next coming quarter as well. Sushanth, over to you, yeah.

Thanks, Muruga. Our EBITDA margin for the matchmaking business in Q1 is at 26.9% as compared to 22% in Q4 and 17.6% a year ago.

Marketing expenses for the matchmaking business in Q1 were 46.5 crores, compared to 43.5 crores in Q4 and 46.7 crores a year ago. Excluding marketing expenses, margins for matchmaking business is at 63% and compared to in Q4 59% and a year earlier [unclear].

On a consolidated basis, EBITDA margin in Q1 is at 20.1%, compared to 12.4% in Q4 and 11% a year ago. Tax rate for the quarter 23.8%.

PAT is at 19.1 crore, a growth of 96.2% quarter-on-quarter and 127.5% year-on-year. Share of loss from AstroVision, our associate company, is 9 lakhs.

Cash balance at the end of Q1, 342 crores. Return on capital employed is 36.4%.

On the outlook for Q2 margins, we expect to achieve a triple-digit year-on-year growth in PAT. Profit may be similar level of Q1 or slightly better than current quarter.

I would like to end this customary safe harbor statements. Certain statements during this call could be forward-looking on our business, which involves a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements.

We do not undertake to update any such forward-looking statements that may made from time to time by or on behalf of the company unless it is required by law. Thank you.

Handing over to Muruga.

Thank you, Sushanth, yeah. We can take questions now.

Hi. Firstly, congratulations for great results.

My first question was regarding revenue recognition mechanism. How do we recognize revenue, whether it is over the period or at the end of the plan?

Second was how much is the difference between the billing growth and the revenue growth?

Abhinav, thanks so much. The revenue recognize based on the subscription period.

We have the membership from ranging from 3 months to 1 year also. For the duration of membership period, the revenue getting recognized.

That's the way it is done. If you look at the quarter one, the billing was 136 crore overall and matchmaking was 135.3 crore, where the revenue recognition was 130.5.

There's almost a 5 crore difference. Because of last year also that the longer-term package, 1-year package was introduced.

Sometimes the revenue gap on account of the increase in the billing on an account of different packages. It's get recognized over a period of time, so.

In some quarter, maybe 98% or 97%, depends.

Okay. Would you expect it to streamline going forward, the revenue and billing, both?

Yeah.

The thing is about it's the billing growth continues because the today See, we look at year before, our packages were only a 3 months package by and large and some 6 months package. Last year we also introduced a 1-year package.

There'll be some difference. If the billing continues growth, there'll be some difference of here and there few crore.

Depends on the quarters. Suppose the billing growth, sometimes the catch-up may happen also.

There's a billing growth Q2 and Q3 there will be some bit of slight slowdown can happen in terms of compared to the previous quarter, but revenue may can be better also. It depends.

Net-net, it's last year was the first year we introduced, this year some catch-up is happening. Maybe between 97% to 99%, depends on the quarters, yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Hello? Yeah.

Next question is basically our cash on our balance sheet, what is the use which we are anticipating? Are we planning any acquisition or something?

Definitely, we continue to evaluate opportunities to reward our shareholders, also to grow the business. We look at opportunity to acquire companies, opportunity to invest, and opportunity to reward companies also.

That continue to happen, so.

Got it. The new ventures where there's a lot of cash burn continuing, and we've discontinued also a couple of operations, what is the new outlook on the new venture business?

Would we see any goodwill impairment or something on movement?

In terms of the newer opportunity, definitely we see the opportunity to grow the wedding services, other initiatives. We definitely see the momentum happening probably in the coming quarters.

We are definitely upbeat about it. We changed the model, which we communicated some time back.

We moved from the subscription business model to a commission-led model. We believe that's the way forward on the wedding services.

We're seeing some traction, we are working on things, and so we are quite optimistic about the growth opportunity in the wedding services space and also other initiatives. We see that happening in the coming quarter, which we are confident of it.

In terms of the goodwill, and we did take some impairment in quarter four. It depends, on how the business performs or not.

We continue to evaluate and take decisions at appropriate stage and all that. In terms of net-net, yes, we definitely are upbeat about opportunity in the non-matchmaking revenue side.

Which we hope to show the growth in the coming quarters,

yeah. Could you give a split of how much would be BharatMatrimony out of the total matchmaking services?

For competitive reasons, we prefer not to give the breakup. We are talking on a consolidated basis, yeah.

Okay. If you could just help me with a regional breakup, revenue split, like which part of India would be predominant?

I think it would be South, right? If you could just give me a broad breakup.

Sorry, I think your voice is little sort of I don't know, speaker or something is not

Can

you hear me clearly? Yeah.

Better, yeah.

Yeah. My question was in terms of geographical split.

I understand we are more heavily dominant in the South, but could you help me with a good mix of geography?

Again, for competitive reasons, while you are right that some other markets we are a very strong player, but again, for competitive reasons, we prefer not to share the geography breakup and all.

All right, got it. Any particular reason why our legal fees are so high?

What was the question? Sorry.

Legal fees.

Sorry, again, not so clear. [unclear]

Legal fees.

Legal fees, okay. Why the legal fees and all that.

Sushanth, want to explain that?

See, we are now registering all the trademark. We have a lot of trademark there.

We're registering that trademark so that other people should not misuse our trademark. That all that registration expenses, all that we are now doing for all our trademark.

Got it. Any ASP increase you are taking in the plans across any of our platforms?

Ticket size, like...

No, it's sort of we deploy various pricing strategy, nothing in particular,

yeah. Since last year your strategy was to go from shorter plans to longer plans, are we discontinuing our shorter plan or how are things like?

Basically, can you explain that, and basically if all the contracts are moved to 1-year contract, when will the billing catch up with the revenue?

See, it's again it's users choice which package the user want to opt for. That's the choice of users.

While there's a benefit of people to go for 1-year package, again, it's individual choice. Some people prefer to get married in a shorter span of time.

Again, it's one more package. It's not that today the 1-year package it's a big contribution for us.

However, we introduced this package to ensure that there's some kind of continuity for the users who are serious about matchmaking, to have a continuity in the service without need to worry about the subscription on every 3 months. Again, it's individuals' preference and choice.

It's not the big part of our business. It's a certain percent of customer opt for it.

However, we provide this option to the customer so that people can have the continuity. In terms of it's again it's individual choice.

I wouldn't say that anything in particular or only for a set of customer, nothing like that. Nothing like incentivizing or disincentivizing, it's a more like individual choice of which package somebody wants to go for.

Obviously, 1-year package is not the multiple of 3 months package. Obviously, there's a the price way there's a benefit of going for 1-year package, yeah.

Okay. Got it.

Thank you so much. I'll get back in queue for further questions.

Thank you.

Hello gentlemen, good evening.

Good evening, Mr. Vasudevan, yeah.

The thing is, excellent performance. 100% you have given a increase.

Is it because of the lower base last year? Does it sustainable in future also?

Because for the last few quarters, your revenue and your this one has been very flat. Because of the lower base, this 100% jump show.

Is it sustainable? This is my one question.

The second question is, one Bharat [Ek Khoj?] investment you have made last year, I understand.

What is the financial impact you got from that? Please be categorical whether it is beneficial, yes or no.

If it is yes, how much? If it is no, why?

In terms of whether triple-digit profit this year, yeah, this year, definitely because last year we totally introduced a 1-year package, some of our revenue got deferred. The combination of not only that, again, the continuous growth momentum.

As I said in my opening speech, we expect a double-digit billing growth as well as revenue growth this year. It's a combination of a continued growth momentum plus because of the deferred revenue.

Both are happening at the same time. Definitely this year, we see that triple-digit growth happening in the quarters.

That what we're talking about, the Sushanth Swain mentioned, the Q2 profit may be at the similar level or even slightly better than the Q1 level. We have the double-digit billing growth, double-digit revenue growth, profit at a similar level or slightly better also.

That means we are talking about sort of triple-digit profit growth for Q2. We expect for this year that number sort of again, when it's talking only current quarters, which is again pretty much there.

That's on the matchmaking. When comes to Bharat [Ek Khoj?]

, it's more of the investment we made in one of the startups. We invested around Rs.

4 crore, okay? It's a long-term investment.

It's a investment in one of the startups. It's a more like a lot happening on AI side, that company doing AI astrology.

It's an investment opportunity for us because we see then AI has been evolving, astrology has been a domain has been picking up. We saw the opportunity to invest in that company and all.

You want to...

One more question, gentlemen. I think am I talking to Vice President Sushanth, I understand.

Is it?

No,

this is

Murugavel,

MD and

Sushanth is here. This is Murugavel and this, yeah.

Managing Director.

Okay. Last time, I think there was one gentleman, CFO is not in the conference call today?

He's not in the conference call today, yeah.

Is he not feeling well?

No, actually, he's on vacation, actually. Incidentally, anyway, he's kind of moving out as well, but again, he's on vacation, he has a few days of working day left, but he's on vacation now, actually.

Gentlemen. Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Good evening. I have three questions.

You said this year you have introduced AI. What are the AI use cases which you are implementing in your business to stay ahead?

This is question one.

Yeah.

Can I continue the question or one by one?

No, no, you can continue the question, I can respond it together.

Please. Second question is, what is the plan of the company to increase the top line?

This quarter there is an increase in the top line like resulted in the net profit. I want to know just on the plan of your company.

Third point is, the investor presentations in the website is all research and datas are all showing as on 2016. Why not provided updated?

A data using 2026 or current one? These three questions.

Thank you, Mr. Vasudevan.

Let me go one at a time. Regarding AI, AI used in a lot of automations, what's being done by people we are trying to do it through AI.

The things like earlier we used to have people to do the profile validations and the photo validations. We used to employ people, because the one thing Matrimony want to be a company where it's a known for trust and credibility, everything is validated before gets to the platform.

Today, obviously these kind of things pretty much can be done through AI. That's one area, automation, thing like that.

Customer experience, we have AI chatbot instead of today humans answering questions, it can be done by AI chatbot. These are some of the work.

Obviously, a lot is happening. We are also using AI on the product side to ensure that customers have a good experience.

AI is on multiple areas in the organization. In terms of the plans to grow the business, again, we already mentioned that we expect double-digit billing growth and the revenue growth.

The growth is a combination of multiple. One is that continue to work on the profile acquisition, conversion strategies, and so these are things we continue to work on, and product improvements.

It's a combination all the things continue to happen. Again, matchmaking is about the profiles and conversions and selling the right package.

This continue to work on this strategy. We launch a new offering, we launch love.com.

We also went regional on love.com, we launched malayolamlove.com, because Malayalam is one market where the normally the uptake is good. We also going regional on love.com.

The expansion there are the business-related expansion. Marketing, we also continue to invest big in marketing.

A lot of conversion strategy also being worked out. Combination of all the things are helping us to grow the business.

In terms of investor presentations, yeah, thank you for the valuable input. We definitely look into and get this addressed.

We can move on to the next question, please.

Hello? Hello?

Yeah. Janakiraman, congratulations after a long time double-digit growth.

Hello?

Thank you, sir. Please.

Yeah. Entire year net profit is same what you given in a same way.

Another one, last concall, I requested when employee or promoter buying and selling, they have to inform exchange within 3-4 days what mode, what price they bought it or sell it. That is a two questions from my end.

See,

sorry, the first question was not so clear and second question. Could you please repeat, sir?

Yeah. What you given a current quarter net profit, can we expect entire full year same in line with that net profit?

No,

we are only talking about quarter two because we don't want to talk about the entire year. Again, based on the last year, the deferred revenue, Q1 there's a growth, Q2 we are expecting both billing and revenue and double-digit growth.

We expect the momentum to continue. I don't want to get into a specific quarter beyond the Q2.

However, as Sushanth told, Q2 is a double-digit billing and revenue, that's what we foresee. As profit already mentioned is better than possibly even the Q1, slightly or maybe similar level.

Again, last year that the growth is continuing, we're running efficient operations, all these things contributed to the increase in PAT as well. Again, we are also investing in the growth as well.

That's continuing going to happen. That's the thing.

In terms of the promoter buying back and all the thing, our company secretary will do the needful. Thank you so much for...

Thank you.

Hello? Yes, sir.

Hi, congrats for the good set of results. I wanted you to specifically speak about love.com and the efforts that you have taken, and in terms of some kind of initial feedback in terms how it is shaping up, because we see Aisle as part of Info Edge's disclosure is shaping up pretty well.

Since it is liquidity based platform and we need to be a first-mover, I just wanted to know how we are progressing on that.

Thanks so much for asking the question. See, there is an opportunity, because India being a large market, obviously Matrimony is a large market.

Again, there are opportunity in the serious matchmaking as well. That the reason we've gone to love.com.

Again, compared to Aisle you are talking about in space big, it's probably almost 2 decades old. It's around a 40 crore revenue last year.

We definitely see that there's an opportunity. That the reason we bought the domain name love.com.

We also realized that the strength of Matrimony has been in a regional, and again, Aisle again is not a single brand, they are multiple brand as well. We also think that going regional on love.com may be the good strategy.

We just rolled out Malayali Love. We intend to go regional on love.com as well.

Again, you are talking about somebody branding at almost 2 decades vis-a-vis just launched just recently. We definitely going to invest.

We're going to improve on our product offering and also be a one of the best player in this segment as a serious matchmaking space. Definitely product-wise is good, we are 100% verified and we have some USPs.

It's about marketing and getting more profile, because all this matchmaking or matrimony, profile acquisition is important. We're going to invest, while we launch Malayali Love, we may launch other regions as well.

We may invest some money behind this love.com and grow the business. Yes, it's one of the things we want to invest and grow.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

That's all I had.

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I have two questions.

Firstly, we have seen our ATV for the matchmaking line by 7% Q-on-Q. Just wanted to know are we taking this bundling steps or discounting which has led to this decline in the ATV since we have moved to the new model which is basically an ATV accretive rather than a decline?

What was the reason for such a decline?

No, sorry, it's kind of, again, my apologies, it's not so clear. Would you please repeat your question again?

Sir. My question is basically on the ATV price, which is for the quarter declined by 7% Q-on-Q.

ATV,

yeah. Since we transitioned into a new model, I think what is the reason for such a decline in ATV?

Okay. See, ATV again, no, we should not read too much into ATV.

The pricing is one of the levers. There are different packages and different price points.

Obviously the objective is to grow the business. Again, offering the right package to the right customer.

Some customer offer the lower price or some customer higher price, discounts. It's all being employed based on the data analytics and all that.

It's not something the ATV continue going to increase. It's a combination of various strategy, no, segmentation, pricing, and all that.

In my view, you should not read too much into the ATV. It's a more of you have to look into the both side.

Again, we're talking about introduction of 1-year package. Again, it's introduced last year, majority of people go for one is small percent of people opt for it and all that, so.

That way, we apply various strategies to drive the growth, price is one of the lever. Again, price some quarter move up, some quarter reduce, depends on the what package or, again, uptake in some of the package higher impact.

There are multiple factors come into force and all that. I wouldn't read too much into ATV, because we are not operating at steady state.

It's multiple customer segment. Also more importantly, you have multiple products.

We have the Jodi, which is kind of very low cost price product. Now we also launched love.com, again, very low cost product.

It's, again, combination of multiple things. My suggestion is, yeah, so that's one of the information that should not give too much into that one.

Sir, second question is on your revenue recognition basically, sir. If I look at deferred revenue and collections, can you help me understand that what percentage of deferred revenue will be booked in the current quarter and what percentage of the billings is booked in the revenue?

No, the thing is about what percent of revenue gets booked in the current quarter. See, it's again we said you can pretty much around between 97% or to 99% happens, depends on the quarter.

Sometimes, if the billing slows down, the revenue may move up and all. If you look at amount of exact revenue get captured and all those things, I don't have the number on top of things, but it's more like you can assume on a trend basis, you can assume between probably 96% to 99% also you can assume on that.

Understood. Sir, third question is on marriage services and others.

We've seen that there is a loss being narrowed down for the current quarter. Should we read more into it, like how should we look at the trajectory going forward and what are the steps which are taken which has led to this narrowing of losses in the current quarter?

It's more than the losses, I would probably look into the growth. We definitely see that there is the momentum, and we changed the model, and we also some new initiative getting worked out.

We believe that the growth will get better and in the coming quarter. The momentum will accelerate as you progress.

Last quarter, we had taken some impairment as well, that the reason the losses were slightly higher. Other than that, yeah, it's around less than a 4 crore per quarter,

That's

what I think.

Yeah. Last quarter...

Correct. Yeah.

That's a one of. Apart from that, trajectory has been maintained.

It is not improved. That's what you meant to say, right?

Correct, and yeah. Okay.

Sir, any update on Many Jobs? How is it progressing and what is the timeline we'd be seeing to roll out on national level like before?

What are the key metrics we'll be tracking for rollout now? Yeah.

We have a good number of company are using it. Again, since it's the very early days, it's a combination of the paid model and some customer trial also given.

We have more than 1.5 million job seekers. It may take some time till we achieve the certain run rate or close to a break-even, you may not expand to other markets.

We want to stay limited to stay focused only in Tamil Nadu. At this point in time, maybe next year, maybe coming next year also probably we focus only in Tamil Nadu.

Probably something next year we may decide when we want to go national or

not. Got it, sir.

Thank you. That's what my questions.

Thanks, Pranay.

Please go ahead. Hi, good evening.

Thanks for taking my question. I have two questions.

Yes, Mr. Ankur, yeah.

Yeah. Continuing the response about the wedding services business, it was not very clear to me.

Could you shed some more light with the change in the business model that we have taken and what is the time period that you look for the business of marriage services to break even and then become profitable? That is question one.

The second question is about advertisement expenses. Have you seen any reduction in the overall competitive intensity?

As we go forward, do you see these ad expenses to moderate from the current levels? Thank you.

Yeah.

The business model of wedding services, we moved from sort of while we operate to some extent subscription, but what we want to focus on the commission-based model. That was what currently being piloted.

We believe that's sort of thing we want to focus on. In terms of when do you think it can achieve a profitable and all the thing, it's more of we believe there's an opportunity, we want to grow the wedding services and take it to a probably a 100 crore run rate, then we can at that level it sort of it can contributing to the profit also.

Focus because the wedding service is a large opportunities, as far as it's not that achieving a break-even, it's a more of achieving the growth and reaching the run rate, it's what important for us. Which we believe we can do it, that's a point number one.

Again, we're just trying this model, we believe it's a right way to look into that opportunity. Probably sometime maybe 1 year down the line, probably have a better clarity on this one.

While we believe that we are in the right I would say that we think that the approach is right and, again, probably have some clarity in the coming quarters. In terms of advertisement, while some bit of softening, but again, we are also want to invest behind our newer opportunities.

Invest big in some of the existing product as well. While there's some bit of softening, we don't expect to reduce on marketing.

Probably maybe even invest slightly more on marketing with all, while the profitability will be there, the growth will be there. Even maybe required, we may even slightly step up on marketing as well to drive the growth.

We don't see any reduction in the marketing, so. While competitive intensity is there, there are some market is soften, but net-net, it's slowed down across India.

Having said that, we also want to invest big in some other newer opportunities. We may even slightly step up marketing as well.

Thank you.

If there are no further questions, yeah, we can end the conference call.

Thank you shareholders and investors, and thank you for your patience. Last year we did take some steps for the long-term interest of our organization, and thanks for your patience.

As we committed, the profits started showing up. We expect the momentum to continue.

Look forward to your continuous support. Thank you so much.

Thank you.