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Chennai, Sept. 11 Matrimonial search is the 13th most popular activity on the Internet among 12 million urban users in India, says a study by research firm Juxt Consult. Dating/friendship sites are the 10th most popular pastime. E-mail, job search and instant messaging are the top three activities on the Net, in that order, says the study.

According to the study, the findings of which were shared with Business Line by Bharat Matrimony, the 25-35 age group forms the largest base of matrimonial users at 40 per cent, followed by the 19-24 age group at 34 per cent. Online matrimony users are relatively younger compared to the rest of the Internet users, the study says.

The South accounts for 44 per cent of users of matrimonial Web sites. Also, compared to last year, the proportion of online matrimony users from South has leapt from 36 per cent last year to 44 per cent this year.

The Bharatmatrimony group of Web sites leads in the online matrimony business with 35.5 per cent users preferring it, followed by Shaadi with 28.2 per cent. Incidentally, both matrimonial Web sites have completed a decade of operations this year. Google, Jeevansaathi and Yahoo follow with 5.6 per cent, 5.5 per cent and 5.2 per cent user share respectively.

As a relatively much larger proportion of Bharatmatrimony users (50 per cent) and its regional Web site users come from the South, the increased user base of matrimonial users from South India could be the main reason driving up Bharatmatrimony’s ‘lead’ over Shaadi on preferred usage basis, the study clarifies.

The study reports that online matrimony is a highly ‘evolved’ and ‘branded’ category. Only one in five visit a general portal for this activity, the rest preferring a ‘specialised’ matrimonial portal.

The matrimonials survey was part of the findings of a larger India Online Survey 2007 conducted by Juxt Consult. For the survey, Juxt Consult sampled 10,000 households in 31 cities (of population sizes 20,000 plus) across the country.

The survey profiles the Indian Internet user and his/her online preferences as well as analyses the overall Internet space in India. It used information supplied by the Government to derive appropriate ‘weights’ to make online survey data representative of the entire online urban population. A large-scale online survey was conducted in May 2006, taking into account over 14,200 complete responses capturing net usage behaviour and Web site preferences.

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