Internet in India

Shopping for something on the internet today I noticed Google Checkout and decided to give it a try (you know how anything from Google gets a geek’s adrenalin rushing), but to my utter disbelief and amazement I noticed that Google does not have India in the listed countries (check here), it has service for countries like Lao People’s Democratic Republic and our good old neighbors Bangladesh and Sri Lanka but not India!!!! and surprisingly they do not even offer this service for China, Brazil and Russia.. well guys give me a break!!!!!! if I believe all the world’s economist then BRIC are supposed to be the fast movers and dropping 4 of these countries from a e-commerce product could be a suicide. I think guys @ Google are not reading the newspapers or their subscription has expired.

I am sure Google has some good reasons (probably legal) for not introducing it for a country like India or China, but I am sure interested in knowing the reason. I was definitely not pleased to see that and would like to here from others about their thoughts.

There has been whole lot of advances in this space since we last reported about it.

More players have entered into this space since then. Madhouse, Moviemart to name a few.

Madhouse has been a phone based rental service operating in Chandigarh (based out of Delhi ) for past one and half year and have now gone online with services extended to Delhi/NCR. Moviemart also confirms the market for Online DVD Rentals by moving its 100% offline store to online rentals. The trends in this space are quite positive as some earlier entrants (www.cinesprite.com, www.seventymm.com) are becoming aggressive in marketing, have improved their service levels, have gone for second round of funding etc.

Just to comment on Cinesprite, they are leading the pack as far as Delhi/NCR is concerned and currently promise a large range of titles and very good service levels. I asked for a title and they added it to their collection in a short span of time.

It is definitely becoming one sticky service with switching barriers coming from the movie collection, pricing and other website related features. I haven’t tried others (as I mentioned, it’s a bit sticky) but recommend others to try out Cinesprite.

Since I started using the service a couple of months ago I feel that online DVD rentals hold a definite advantage over the local DVD rental shops. I can search for the available titles, The quality of DVD’s are better, can maintain a queue of DVD’s that I want to watch, return it as per my schedule, no extra charges for keeping it one more day and moreover can request a DVD if it is not available in the collection. The only drawback I find is that they would only provide titles that are legally available in India unlike the local DVD rental shops.

As far as the competition amongst the online DVD rental companies is concerned I think it will all boil down to who has more titles, better deals, better DVD quality, timely deliveries and pickup (quality of service) and better promotional and marketing campaigns.

Challenges - mindset of people (as we last reported it) is difficult to crack and we would love to hear about this from one of the online DVD rental company. These companies surely have been successful in gaining some momentum by breaking such mindsets (or it is the adventurous lot of people - who jump to try out any new service that starts). It will be great to see and to imagine the growth these guys can have if they are successful in delivering on this front.

e-aahuti, e-pooja, e-mandir, e-pundits, e-yajna etc..

Most of these terms have already come into existence and if not, very soon they would.

Rajiv on WatBlog writes about Saranam.com and Pariharam.com.

But as bursting of firecrackers is not really allowed in the western countries and also the lack of religious temples the Indians abroad are making a beeline to the religious web portals like Saranam.com and Pariharam.com for offering prayers which cost prices ranging from $8 to $15. Such religious portals are offering IT-savvy devotees prayer sessions done at temples in India, sending them a DVD of the prayer and offerings like dried flowers or vermillion, blessed by the priest.

Even the the holiest of temples are coming up with their own websites to facilitate booking of prayers online. Meenakshi temple happens to be one of them.
It’s not really limited to this, there’s a society called “Society for the Confluence of Festivals in India” operating out of Noida and runs the following sites:
1. Diwali
2. Durga Pooja
3. Pongal
4. Raksha Bandhan
5. BhaiDooj
7. KarwaChauth

…. and probably many more, think of an Indian Festival and they have a web site for that.

All of the sites are pretty informative and offer details right from history of the festival to celebrations, traditions and gifts. Good source of information equally for Indians and NRIs. A look at google trends for karwa chauth during this time gives a fair idea of the massive number of hits (revenue potential?) these sites get at the time of that particular festivals.

“Online gifting has become a popular phenomenon because it’s so convenient. Rs 29.5 crores worth of gifts were bought Online for the year 2004-2005 with Rs 53 crores expected for the year 2005-6 - IAMAI

“The festival season of 2005, online shopping saw customers spend $25 million on gifts, clothes and household articles”
-Source

Let’s see what are the figures for this year, and how much do the Indians and NRIs spend online this festive season.

I’ve been hearing whispers that Google will integrate their social network Orkut with the mobile social networking app they acquired last year, Dodgeball. While it’s not rocket science to make the connection between the two products (both are social networking), the reasons to join the two are becoming more compelling… via ReadWriteWeb

Well, if this could happen in Brazil, India would be the next. So, Yaari.com needs to make it’s mark before Google comes with it’s offering.

Somehow managed to get access to Yaari.com through a friend’s ID. So here is a screenshot depicting the very obvious features of any social networking site.

Unlike Fropper, this site is free. The obvious question is how does a free social networking site survive, online advertising?, no, Prerna Gupta - CEO yaari.com is smarter! (our absolute faith in this, forced us to think and led to some more research).

So here are the screenshots that strike the chord.

The revenue comes from sms, tie up with Mobile Carriers in India, get a part of money user spends on receiving an sms (the standard rate in India is approx Rs.5 per sms, and typically carrier would not mind giving a rupee to a partner) from web and cash in on the volumes.
Smart as it might seem, but again the “Idea” in itself isn’t at all original. Yaari.com appears to be inspired by SMS.ac (A San Diego based Social Networking company with a registered user base of over 50 million in over 180 countries - Source). Sms.ac has more features than yaari has, but then they are moving in the right direction. Alerts and SMS messaging itself would amount to a lot of revenues.

Seems, Yaari.com has come up with an indianized version of SMS.ac. But that’s what has been happening in the consumer internet market in India. SMS volumes in India are unbelievably high, Just to give us a hint

“60m sms messages were sent new year’s eve in India in 2005 -Source“

Claims

Market size of Rs. 58 crore, expected growth 50%
-Source

On a, all-India basis, about 30-50 people get married through Bharatmatrimony.com daily. These are counts based on people who inform us about it. Some of them don’t inform, so the count could actually be higher.
-Source

Market Share

TOP INTERNET GAINERS FOR THE YEAR 2005 E-matrimony:
Shaadi.com
Bharatmatrimony.com
timesmatri.com
jeevansathi.com
-Source
When it comes to matrimony sites, Bharatmatrimony and Shaadi have the highest preference among consumers and fight it out for the top position in that category. Shaadi.com and Bharatmatrimony.com are the two biggest websites in the online matrimonial space, each with 33 per cent user preference. They command an almost equal share of this classifieds vertical. Some 16 per cent of those who search for their significant others on the web head to Jeevansaathi.com. Interestingly, Jeevansaathi has entered the top three rung this year; last year, it did not even make it to the top five slots.
-Source

Recent Investments

Shaadi.com received funding in March’06 and now yahoo invests in BharatMatrimony.com
-Source

The Changing Direction - Assisted Internet

Well, majority of online consumer base at these matrimonial sites happens to be NRIs. The market seems immature to embrace online matrimony. The other problem is internet penetration, so setting up centers in cities helps, but the first issue remains.

An Interesting Revenue Model - iRishta

iRishta.com, the free matrimony site, has come up with a very innovative business model, using which they claim to create waves in the online matrimony market.

“We would make money by advertising our competitors.”

I am not aware of any particular business management term for this, I’d love to call it “parasitic existence“.

(How else would we survive?. The very fact that the last post on the blog is dated “June 12, 2006″, points to the dormancy of the site, or is it active?)

Opinion:
It would still take some time for this market to boom. The changing consumer mindset and social structure leading to more independent thinking would certainly help these sites cash in.

Quick Comments/Review(My personal opinion)
1. Shaadi.com - Good UI, very popular with NRIs, decent features with astrology and video club
2. BharatMatrimony - Just average UI, offers verified profiles, average number of Indian profiles
3. JeevanSathi - Below average UI, good number of Indian profiles, decent customer care.
4. iRishta - I’ve already written enough about this one