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TELEGRAPH.CO.UK -- June 7 -- Boasting 10m members and a million marriages in 11 years, Shaadi (400 employees) has been a runaway success. Shaadi.com was launched in 1997 by Anupam Mittal, a business graduate of Boston College in the US. Now Shaadi is one of India's five most popular sites. It boasts 300m page views each month and 6,000 new profiles are added every day (60% of which are male). Despite having the second fastest-growing economy in the world, India remains a deeply conservative society, especially where marriage and relationships are concerned. A recent magazine survey revealed that more than 60% of young unmarried Indians disapproved of the idea of sex before marriage; 40% said they wanted to marry within their own caste. An estimated 95% of all marriages in India are arranged, usually after lengthy negotiations between two families. Shaadi.com also provides additional services: a directory listing of wedding-related services; a lifestyle website, shaaditimes.com, with features on travel, fashion and health; and a sister site, secondshaadi.com, for divorcees and widows. There are also more than 150 Shaadi.com Centres in 87 Indian cities, where parents and children can sit down with a relationship adviser and trawl the company's database.

Mark Brooks: Bharat Matrimony is Shaadi's main competitor in India. I interviewed Bharat Matrimony's CEO/Founder here (Dec' 2006). Both companies use a network of agents to service those without computers and the internet across India.

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