Matrimony.Com Limited (NSE: MATRIMONY) Q1 2026 Earnings Call dated Aug. 13, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
Jayram Shetty — Chartered Accountant
Murugavel Janakiraman — Chairman & Managing Director
Harigovind Krishnasamy — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Premalal Brahmanage — Analyst
Damodaran Narayanan — Analyst
Rajesh Vasudevan — Analyst
Abhisek Banerjee — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Matrimony.com Q1FY26 earnings conference call hosted by ICICI Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will remain in the listen only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal the operator by pressing Star than zero on your touchstone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Jayaram Shetty from ICICI securities for opening remarks. Thank you. And over to you.
Jayram Shetty — Chartered Accountant
Good afternoon everyone. On behalf of ICI Security, I would like to welcome you all to quarter one FY26 earnings call of maturemind.com from the company we have Mr. Murgavel Jankiraman, M.D. and CEO Mr. Hari Govind Krishna Swamy, Chief Financial Officer. The call will begin with brief management remarks followed by Q and A section. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr. Janki Raman for his opening remarks. Over to you, sir.
Murugavel Janakiraman — Chairman & Managing Director
Thank you. Mr. Jaram Sethi. Good evening everyone. As mentioned in our last call, our growth momentum picked up in quarter one compared to quarter four. With the various initiatives and strategies we are highly confident of continuous growth in the coming quarters for the full year. We believe we are on the track to achieve double digit growth in year on year. Building in quarter one on a consolidated basis we achieved building of rupees 126.2 crores. A growth of 10% compared to the previous quarter and 7.4% year on year. Revenue is at rupees 115.3 crores. A growth of 6.5 percentage over previous quarter and decline of 4.4 percentage year on year.
This was due to the revenue to billing ratio gap. Key edits for the matchmaking business quarter one are as follows. Building at rupees 125.3 crore. A growth of 10.4% over previous quarter and 7.8% year on year. Revenue at 114.1 crores. A growth of 6.6% over previous quarter and decline of 3.8% year on year. We added 2.62 lakhs paid substantially in the quarter. A growth of 6.59% over previous quarter and decline of 0.8% year on year. The average transaction value for the matchmaking business grow by 3.3% compared to the previous quarter and 8.6% year on year basis.
We have facilitated over 28,000 successful marriages through our matchmaking platform. Now coming to the marriage services business building were rupees 88 lakhs, a decline of 28.1 percentage for previous quarters and 26 point percent year on year. Revenue was 1.3 crore, a decline of 4.4% over previous quarter and 3.35.8% year on year. EBITA level loss for the quarter was rupees 3.3 crore as compared to loss of 2.2 cr in the quarter 1 of 25 quarter 1 of F25. It not only marriage services, it also improved other services initiative as well under building and RE outlook for quarter two for match making business on a year on year basis expect to post either a double digit or high single digit growth in quarter two but a decline compared to quarter one as quickly as a seasonal quarter.
Marriage services and other things other services expect to be higher than quarter one. Let me hand over to Ari Govind for CF4 to comment on the key property items.
Harigovind Krishnasamy — Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Muruga Our EBITDA margin for the matchmaking business in Q1 is at 17.6% as compared to 17.7% in Q4 and at 22.6% a year ago. The drop in EBITDA margin is largely due to the due to a temporary drop in revenue to billing ratio which will flow to P and L in the subsequent quarter. Marketing expenses for the matchmaking business in Q1 were 46.7 crores, broadly flat compared to Q4 and 47.1 crore a year ago. Excluding marketing expenses, margins for the matchmaking business stood at 59% versus 61% in Q4 and 62% a year earlier. On a consolidated basis, EBITDA margin in Q1 is at 11% compared to 10.8% in Q4 and 16.7% a year ago.
Tax rate for the quarter stands at 22.5%. PAT is at 88.4 crores, a growth of 2.6% on a quarter to quarter basis but a decline of 40%. Share of loss from Astrovision, our associate company is 19 lakhs. Cash balance at the end of Q1 is 330 crores. Return on capital employed is 9.1%. On the outlook for Q2 margin, we expect PAT to be at similar levels of Q1. I would like to end with the customary safe harbor statement. Certain statements during this call could be forward looking statements on our business. These involve 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 be made from time to time by or on behalf of the company unless it is required by law.
Murugavel Janakiraman — Chairman & Managing Director
Thank you, Ari. Now we can open up.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to use their handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Ladies and gentlemen, a reminder. If you wish to ask a question, please press star and 1. The first question comes from the line of Premalal an individual investor.
Please go ahead.
Premalal Brahmanage
Hi sir. Good evening. I’m from Hyderabad, sir.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Yes, Premala. Please go ahead.
Premalal Brahmanage
Yes. Every year in that your advertisement cost it would be 180 to 185 crores. You are spending right in the sales of 40% of the. On the revenue revenue. If you. If you could reduce that advertisement, it will impact any business. That is the one question, sir. If you can reduce that advertisement cost, profitability will increase. No, that is the one question, sir. And. And you. You are having a 320 course cash on that you are looking in new articles. Because in the market I am not quoting any company name, used car, one site. They’re quoting at market cap 11,000 crores. But anyone can replicate easily. But our niche matrimony is and it cannot replicate anyone. Right. So. But are you looking for new verticals and all? Two questions, sir. My side.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Okay. Regarding the first question in terms of you reduce the marketing spend with the profit increase. Yes, definitely. But again we continue to evaluate the opportunity to optimize the marketing spend and we are able to do that. And we are able to allocate some of the marketing towards the newer initiatives where the marketing overall remain at the similar level. Well, that is within the matchmaking there is a shift in the marketing spend. In our offering. We in fact start investing matrimony which was not the case a year before. So while the overall marketing at this level.
We expect to remain at this level for the coming quarters. While reducing some of the offerings. While also stepped up and and marketing in some of those areas. So yeah, there is opportunity to you know, reduce marketing. Depends on whether we are able to optimize or depends on the market scenario which will definitely do it. But at this point of time the outlook on the market extend. It will remain at the similar level. And we’ll come to other one in terms of whether we are looking at any opportunity. We are investing in one of the areas with many jobs.
The exclusive entire job in Tamil Nadu. We expect to get monetized from this quarter onwards. So that’s something we’re already investing in one of the areas within the matchmaking. But within matchmaking there are initiatives as well that is allow.com we’re going to launch a new product which is believed that will be a right product for the segment which are looking at targeting and and continue to evaluate within that the offsetting building service. We are figuring out new things which we continue to evaluate. So yeah.
Premalal Brahmanage
Thank you so much. That answers the question.
operator
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. If you wish to ask a question please press star and one we take the next question from the line of Jayram Shetty from ICCI Securities Ltd. Please go ahead.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Please go ahead.
Jayram Shetty
So one of your competitor has like its building revenue has grown around 36% while our building zone our building have grown only 10.4%. What factor explain this gap? Is it primarily because of location? They are north based and we are out focused. Is that the reason or any other reason you want to point out?
Murugavel Janakiraman
See the thing is that you know I think the same the company are talking about one part of the revenue has been grown by 31st place because there is Indian business model. Then the same business model when a revenue drops with that is 40% when change the business model to the earlier model the revenue will bounce back to this kind of. So that’s largely things apart from that, you know in a small base you know there could be opportunity if you make some improvement there can be an uptake also. So. Well you know difficult to know.
It’s not about the business that running at this similar state for many years there is a new business model and the business model was also changed for the player you are talking about. So the mapping only case there’s nothing like changing the business model. We’ll continue to operate at the similar business model while trying to incubate new businesses. So the reason is already explained where the last year was a big growth now and we started growing and see the profiles are back. And our strategy is also we expect the growth to continue with the rise single digit RW growth.
We are comparing confident of WB growth on building this year the gap takes up to a quarter to catch up. So I think I would say that it has to do with the way the chain of business modeled and once again gone back to earlier model was one of the main factor that’s sort of radiating to the growth and all the things. But I’m sure they may be done some things also again scale and size also different. So we continue to do whatever best we can do.
Jayram Shetty
Okay, thank you sir. Also please share update on the new initiatives which have undertaken like the Astro Astro and many job platforms. Like. Like. Like how much traction they are getting. Can you share some detail on that many jobs? It’s.
Murugavel Janakiraman
It’s doing well in terms of the number of downloads and reaches. We are in seminar alone we are at million downloads a year and we have more than 5 lakhs of the research job seekers and around 10,000 people are equivalent using it. Again it’s at this point in time it’s all free and we entered the monetize from this quarter onwards and probably in the coming quarters or year. You know, we know that that is coming and in terms of rating it’s a better rating and serving the right customer segment. Again it’s too early because you know any intern business take many years before you see whether the business is succeeding.
I would say that still at the very, very early stages. But I believe we seem to be on the right track. The other thing, that’s why we are still in the. Trying to figure it out what are the best business model. We are trying to do some bit of AI A astrology and combination of a plus a human astrology. That’s the thing we’re trying to figure it out. We say that astrology. We are trying to get the product market fit right. So we are just experimenting certain things.
Jayram Shetty
Thank you for your answer. This is my last question. Are you planning to do any buyback. Or.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Buyback we’re done to buy back and the board will continue to evaluate and we are again with. You know, maybe we’re still in the. You know normally, you know every buyback there’s a one year gap between the. After one year the board may decide evaluate this opportunity and the board board will be.
Jayram Shetty
Thank you. Thank you.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Thank you Mr. J.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Damodaran from Acutis Capital. Please go ahead.
Damodaran Narayanan
Thank you for the opportunity. So while your billing growth was around 78% if I look at subscriber which is around 2 and a half lakhs that’s been broadly in the same range for three years now. So what’s the outlook there? I mean is it that we have saturated on our key markets? Is that the thing or why? I mean why is the. Why is that not going so just one question on that and related on the atv. I mean most of the growth is most of the buildings led by atv. So have you increased price or is it just because of increasing share of assisted analytics?
Murugavel Janakiraman
There’s a combination. There’s definitely. There is a personal services also doing well. And also there’s the mix of packages as well. So while the growth is definitely, you know compared to the previous quarter that there’s increase in the the building volume compared to previous quarter. And while year on year they look same but there’s 80 increase because of the department services. And also the. We also have the one year package. All these things are contributed to the increase in the average transaction value. In terms of the building growth. Yes, the building growth is more comparative quarter.
But in terms of gap revenue there’s a gap again because of the mix of the packages. Yeah, we continue to take various initiatives to drive everything whether transaction value. Also in terms of number of paid subscriptions, we continue to drive. So we need a combination of both the parts. One is that number of transactions atg. Both the factors put together will help us achieve the double digit building growth.
Damodaran Narayanan
Sure. I mean and on profiles are we seeing growth in profiles now that was eliminated for last year?
Murugavel Janakiraman
Yes, definitely the profile growth is happening. And also you also add one point here. Basically because of the last year the degrowth has happened for a year. So while the profile growth is bad, we also seeing the growth in the fresh volume, the renewal volume is yet to catch up. It may take a couple of quarters for renewal volume to catch up. So today we are talking about the volume. It’s mainly coming from the increase in the volume coming from the first impayment. So it takes a couple of quarters or the renewal volume to catch up.
So whatever the volume you would achieve in spite of the degrowth in the renewal on account of the last year, the degrowth. So while the first time volume moving up so net net overall volume remains intact. So there’s a drop in the renewal volume which are compensated by the increase in the first name volume. So the good thing that the profile growth is there the first time volumes have moved up the renewal volume, it takes a couple of quarter to catch up. When that you know happened then the growth will, you know the renewal volume also contributed the growth.
That’s the reason we feel that you know, the double digit growth and for years also coming that happened, you know, from this year. And we expect that also to continue further after that also. And yeah, apart from the driving the average transaction value in terms of the growth in the pertaining services and and other Initiatives also aiding the growth. So that is basically now the volume instead of the drop in the annual volume. We are able to out this the volume of 2.6 lakhs compared to the previous year. We’re able to achieve.
Damodaran Narayanan
Sure, that was helpful. And on advertising, just wanted to check on how is the competitive intensity across regions. Has it changed or is it broadly similar to what it was, I mean last year. And you also mentioned that you are recalibrating in terms of while the overall spends remain same, you have tweaked, you have tweaked internally the amount of spends that you are allocating for different segments. So could you, could you throw some light on what the changes have been from your end and what you are seeing in the market?
Murugavel Janakiraman
We definitely see there is some reduction in some market. However increase spend income market depends on the competitor, the different subjectives. So while there is some drop, but it’s still at a level which is more than we believe what is required. So again it’s very from market to market and because of things and opportunities kind of saved cost. We also are looking at investing behind the initiatives like elite matrimony and other initiatives as well.
Damodaran Narayanan
Sure. Just one last question on your employee spend. So I’ve been look, I mean if you look at your employee cost, I think you’ve, you’ve rationalized here in terms of over the years for last five, six years, I think you’re rationalized your head count as well. I mean now it’s dropped around 2,700 employees. Earlier it used to be more than 4,000. So is that largely done or is there more scope for efficiency gains from this line item? And additionally one more observation was you do mention attrition rates in your annual reports. While that has broadly slightly come down.
But overall it seems fairly high. I understand that this is largely led by the frontline staff, which is, I mean in this industry that’s the norm that you have around 90, 100% turnover. But is there any scope of reduction there? So just wanted your thoughts here.
Murugavel Janakiraman
No, definitely. While definitely there’s scope to reduce leveraging AI, so which you continue to look at to optimize wherever it’s possible. But at the same time we’ll be investing behind the growth initiatives as well. So that the growth in the personal services, that means we have to add relationship managers or the growth in some initiative at our people. So while we continue to do both, leverage AI drive process improvement to drive the efficiency at the same time where this growth is happening, where you have to add Associates we’ll do that. That’s on the. On the.
On the. On the people’s count it count. So coming to the attrition definitely the depression between organization coming down. Because we are taking various initiatives to drive that in terms of engagement plus also so making associated to succeed and perform. So that when the. Because most of the attitude you may know that is happening within the first three months or six months. We are looking at various initiatives. We definitely see that some of the initiatives are. But again we have more initiative in the pipeline. We are introducing some other initiatives. We believe that that will further reduce admission.
So probably next year further going down on account of some of the initiatives believe that to ensure associates are contributing at the same time engage better. So that is never come possible.
Damodaran Narayanan
Sure. Thanks. That’s all from my side. Thank you sir.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen. If you wish to ask a question Please press star and 1. We take the next question from the line of Premal an investor. Please go ahead.
Premalal Brahmanage
Sir. Our competitor also spend the same kind of percentage. And instead of buyback spending in new vertical is the best way. I guess that’s my view.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Yeah, sure. Again we don’t have the full information about the. Because the marketing spend has a two component. One is a digital marketing spend. There’s also TV marketing spend. TV is something you need to monitor. We can know what’s happening across the market. But again it may be difficult to understand other the digital spend. And because that’s something we wouldn’t know that. So we don’t know what is the exact company. So again the board will decide on buyback or other things. So that will defect the probability stage.
Premalal Brahmanage
Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Vasudevan an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Rajesh Vasudevan
Hello gentlemen. Good evening Sir.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Good evening. Mr. Balind.
Rajesh Vasudevan
Company’s AGM today. But there is no big target or ambition set for you for the next five years, sir. And also there is one more thing. Your top line and the bottom bottom. Line has been muted for the last five years. It has not shown any great deal. Of improvement which is rather static. Why don’t you send some big goals. Which will drive the team, Sir. And one more aspect. What is update on new business? Sir, Astrology is a area with huge potential, Sir. I think we have not capitalized on that. You have you sir. Thank you.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Thank you. Mr. Vas Devan. In terms of look at the current billing rate. It’s nationally followed. You are on the 500 crore billing rate. So it’s not a flat and the growth was little muted but it’s not flat. And now this year match week alone we are looking at from the current run rate itself 500 crore the run rate. And so while definitely we have that ambitious plan, five year plan obviously that you are not talking publicly or you know so. So that definitely was ambitious. There comes the other one in terms of initiative. You have the new initiatives to all told there’s one many jobs there are building services also we are.
We are trying some initiatives. It’s not same as what it was. We are. We are working on some interesting initiatives there. And we have some tax in Tamil Nadu. Again still too early to comment on that one. So many of the already told we enter to monetize from this quarter in Tamil Nadu depend how it’s going to take in terms of. Yeah these are the initiatives but in terms of astrology, astrology it’s an early context. Again we are trying certain things. It’s still too early. And so we are trying to say that we are trying to be AI plus human combination.
So it’s in very very early stage. We want to figure it out whether we’re able to make this model successful. We are working on it and probably we’ll have maybe coming quarters probably have some better update on it.
operator
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Abhishek Banerjee from ICC securities limited Please go ahead.
Abhisek Banerjee
Hi. Hi Janki sir, my first question is with regards to the competition in the space right. What would be your sense in terms of market share and how has it moved over the last one year. If you could give us some sense there that would be really helpful.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Since we don’t have the know because public travel informations of all the players are difficult to comment on how the market share moved up. Okay, we can only go back what the information available publicly in a couple of years ago. Definitely we have a more than 50% market share. I know the 55 or whatever. I don’t know what the exact number. Now what is standard because we don’t know any public information of all the players.
Hello.
operator
Abhishek, are you there? Ladies and gentlemen, we have lost the line of the participant. We’ll move on to the next question before that. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question please press star and 1. We take the next question from the line of Abhishek Banerjee from ICIC securities limited Please go ahead.
Abhisek Banerjee
Yeah, hi, sorry I dropped off from the line. I’m just trying to Understand that you know given Jeevan Sathi has been growing at a much faster base. Right. That would imply that our market share share would have come down. So you. You still think we are above 50% dis in India?
Murugavel Janakiraman
Oh no, absolutely. And as you are sharing that you know since you are quoted un a few years ago given growth of Catholics because it changed the business model and once again they reverted back model. Obviously they are doing some stuff and they should be getting the growth and all. So I, I think when I was think about it because of drop in the base and once again they’re grow going back on the A model and there’s also obviously they are trying what are the initiatives. That’s a lower base and they got that kind of growth.
And so that’s. That’s. That’s my response to that. And as I said now we. While last year was a challenge year, this year things are coming back and we are able to achieve the growth. And this in spite of the renewal volume. Once that happens the growth will be further better. That’s why we feel that in the coming quarter renewal volume also move up. And that’s the reason we are good to say that this year we expect I single digit growth or double digit growth on the building volume match mix volume crossing touching 500 crores this year.
That’s the current run.
Abhisek Banerjee
Understood. With regard to the northern markets, how. How do you really think we can you know make a larger impact there? Are there any specific strategies that we will be you know adopting to ramp up our share in. In the northern market and even eastern market?
Murugavel Janakiraman
Yeah, we are working on probably next quarter or something probably able to. To communicate better because we are just discussing what should be the approach should be towards our northern market. That’s one of the market that you know that we are not able to make any significant progress, you know on driving the market. But we are working on some strategies hopefully next quarter able to probably communicate better on it.
Abhisek Banerjee
Got it. And with regards to the matrimony, you know the marketplace business. Right. Wedding. Wedding business. So is there a product market fit that we are seeing or, or is it you know going to remain at this level? I mean when can we think of a scale up happening here?
Murugavel Janakiraman
It’s a good question. And we are still the model and that’s something being a pilot in Tamil Nadu. We are working on the commission based model and so it’s in the early stages. We believe that instead of the subscription model getting a commission on the service offered. I think that’s something we believe that maybe the right strategy and we want to achieve the the product market fit and decent uptake while we’re able to get people to you know pay some money to our services. And you are working towards increasing the fulfillment rate of the people interested in wedding services.
So that something you are working on it. Once you are able to get the product market decent scale and size and also fulfillment rate then probably take that thing to other markets still it’s not that what it was the admiral in terms of Cynthia substitution business model while definitely continues the focus mainly on on the commission based model. So that’s what you are apparently doing in one market.
Abhisek Banerjee
Understood. And I think the question on the you know the astrology bit is. Is very relevant and I think you know as we see some of the numbers that these online astrology platforms are kind of showing it becomes you know, even more important for a company like you. So anything that you are really you know working on there that you can speak of?
Murugavel Janakiraman
Yeah, we are working on a astrology and we also going to invest some money in one of the startups that working on a astrology and so that’s also happening while internally we are trying to do our AA astrology. We’re also going to put our money into a company startup working on AI astrology. So we are doing what we can internally with our AI model plus combination AI plus human. The company we are going to invest is completely on AE astrology. We want to do our side as also exploring opportunity on our company working in this case.
Abhisek Banerjee
Understood. So so any any you know last thoughts on how I mean any any shareholder returns, buybacks etc that you are planning.
Murugavel Janakiraman
That’s something. No, the board will decide you know when the buyback period is over and the board will decide whether they want any buyback. Actually that will happen Dividend already declared, you know special dividend account of anniversary and and also today give you also declared dividend. So decide what can apply that shareholder.
Abhisek Banerjee
Got it. Thank you. Thanks. Those are all my questions.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Yeah.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question please press star and 1. As there are no further questions I will now hand the conference over to the management for their closing comments.
Murugavel Janakiraman
Thank you. Thank you Mr. Giram. I think one of the points I want here that almost 11 crore difference between building and gap revenue, the billing and gap revenue being the same could have added additional probably around 8 crore into the profit. Again as our CFO said the coming quarter the gap revenue also catch up while the Q2 in the similar level on account of 160 plus. Also the belief the gap continue out the gap. We expect a number to move up from quarter three onwards and not to large extent. Yeah, the gap will improve from know slightly from Q2 and Q3 and so the profit will increase from the quarter three onward.
But the Q1 is indication of the building and the operating thing that is at the same gap revenue means building be the same. The profit have been probably around 17 +cr also. Okay, that’s the point. I want to say that and the time for a continuous.
operator
Thank you on behalf of ICICI securities limited that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.