 everyone and welcome to another edition of Pitch Brand Talk. Our guest today has been in the news in the recent past when Google delisted the company's app from Google Play Store. He has been one of the leading proponents in voicing concerns of the Indian startup ecosystem when it comes to GPPS, that is the Google Play Billion system. I'm pleased to welcome Mr. Murgavel Janki Raman, founder and CEO of matrimony.com. Sir, thank you so much for taking time out. Thank you for the opportunity. So I just want to start off with the recent delisting of over 100 apps from matrimony of matrimonies from Google Play Store. This has been an ongoing issue and the delisting happened despite ongoing legal proceedings at the competition's commission of India and also at the Supreme Court. Now post the government's intervention, the apps are back on Google Play Store. How do you look back at the past week and what transpired? So first of all, I want to share my deep appreciation to our Honorable Ministers, Sri Aspini Vaishnoji and Sri Rajiv Sandrasekarji because when the apps were deleted on Friday afternoon, because Google sent an email or a note somewhere in the morning around 10 or 11 and another couple of hours, they started deleting a lot of apps. It's not really for matrimony.com. They deleted apps of various companies. Matrimon alone over 150 apps got deleted. We also know that, you know, Naqrish, Shari, there are so many other companies, apps were also deleted. So that came with a big shock considering that it's in Supreme Court and CCA also revving the matter because our contention was that, while there is a clear verdict, Google has been not adhering to the CCA vetting. He went to the contravention petition to CCI, CCA revving the matter, for whatever reason, for one year they did not pick up the matter. Now they had the matter, the judgment is awaited. And what was the urgency for Google to, you know, send an email on Friday, that one Friday and deleting apps the end of the day, you know, by night all the apps are gone. So thanks to Honorable Minister, they openly told that, you know, we don't allow this kind of behavior of Google, you know, deleting apps and that give a lot of confidence to us. Then, you know, thankfully the government got involved, the ministers got involved in spite of the busy schedule. They called both the parties understood the issue. One of the immediate as from our side was not one of the immediate as from our side was get our apps back as it was pre to the delisting. So Google has agreed, now all our apps are back on Play Store after four days for us matrimony. While others are immediately confined very next year, they complete the Google billing payments system because they want to get our apps back. Our case, majority of apps, almost more than 90% apps, we decided not to accept it till we got some clarity. And finally, all our apps got reinstated as of yesterday and we want that. After Google believes that it has the right to implement the business model, its own business model, while the homegrown app developers remain committed to non-GPPS systems. So while the stalemate continues, what is the way ahead? What do you see? How do you see the way ahead? So this is the thing about the issue about not about the GPPs. GPPs, the way it is implemented. What Google is telling that? Let me talk about the multiple things about Google sort of in a way communicating its appears that what is wrong in asking people to implement GPPs. The companies, app developers, you know, use various third party payment gateways, spend between 1 to 2% for all the payment process, processing services. So someone paying money on Bharat matrimony, use various payment gateway like reserve pay, pay you various payment gateway. They charge us a GPP and all, very less. It is a close to zero percentage. So it varies from zero percentage to close to zero percentage to maybe 1.5 percentage. What Google is telling that? Bharat matrimony should use only Google building payment system. A 50 percentage compared to 1.5 percentage. What do you pay for? Other payment gateways. So why? Because the market charges 1 percentage or 1.5 percentage. Google says you are forced to use, if you don't use my only building payment system, which is 10 times more, 20 times more, which is some other company that wants to have 30 percentage. Tell me something, you know, you are operating environment. Okay, suddenly one come, you know, because of Google, you're able to do all those things because Google controls the app ecosystem, 95% markets in India. They're able to do all those things. Okay, if you don't do that, I'll remove the app from the Play Store. They're forcing companies. Look guys, either accept or you're out. It's more like putting gun on your head. Okay, if you want to sign this paper, imagine the movie, the villain comes. Okay, show the paper, okay, sign, otherwise it's going to kill you. Okay, that's what they've been doing it now. They've sent that, okay, either accept or I'll put it deleted. So that has happened even in Akri and Shari.com. The very next day, they accept the concept model because they say, look, the app will be out of the Play Store. Imagine what the app developer, smart app developer do that, you know, when someone is threatening that look, your app will be deleted. And the thing is not about GPPs. They say, look, you have to use only my payment system or app will be deleted. Google will be three options. One is GPPs, which is 15 to 30 percent. The other one is they say called user choice of billing. What user choice are billing? You are allowed to use that party payment gateways, but still you have to share 11 to 26 percent with Google. Even if you're allowed to use that party, still I have to pay 11 percent by revenue to Google or 26 percent by revenue to Google. Okay, there is a user choice of billing, second option. Google allows you to use that party billing, but still forces you to share the financial data and you have to pay 11 to 25 percent revenue to Google. That's a second choice of user choice of billing. The third option Google calls is conception model. What is a conception model? Is that you are not allowed to collect payment at all? The basically thing is about, it's not about Google billing issue. It's being bundled. It's being forced, not selective. What's selective is that Google telling only the company's operating picture services, jobs, education, matrimony, media, entertainment, only this company to pay. Doesn't applicable for e-commerce companies, food delivery companies, travel companies. There are hundreds of companies. Probably they may consume more. What are the place to own? This company exempted. That's a separate thing. It's not that it's a uniform thing on the way. That's also wrong. You can't enforce bundle it all because you are restricted practices. As a monopoly, you are doing restricted practices compared to market which charge you 11.5. You want to charge 10 times. I think that is the wrong thing. Assume that you are the only cement manufacturer in India. Suddenly telling me my price is going to go up by 100%. Are they not going to sell it at all? See, when you are a competitor, when a multiple player, the market determines the prices. No one company has the opportunity to increase the water price. Since Google is being 90% they are able to do all the things because they say I want to delete your apps. You mentioned the word monopoly and about Google's dominance. Do you believe or is there any chance that this can happen again? That's a challenge. That's a fear because Google control 90% have reached India. They are such a dominant player. Whether they do it again, I'm not sure but they can because being such a thing. Until otherwise, the government takes necessary steps to prevent that happening again. Government intervened now because the ministry made it very clear. Look, this is not acceptable. If it become a law, there is a digital competition act is coming. If they are able to make it as a part of law, then Google cannot do it. Currently, it's sort of is nothing prevents from them doing it because they look, you are not following my policy, they can delete it. Who decides the policy? Google decides the policy. Tomorrow, Google can change the policies. As soon as Google takes tomorrow, I don't want to operate Play Store for matrimony services. I'm just telling you for discussion purpose. Tomorrow, Google says, sorry, our Play Store is not for matrimony services. It's a private company. Say, the internet is supposed to be free. 20 years ago, when we set a website, we set a website, we promote our business. Only we are abide by the laws of the land. Today is a Google. You have to also abide by the laws of the Google. So, internet access happened through apps. Apps is controlled by Google. It's important that we understand the implications of this one. Is Google to conduct a responsive manner? Good and a lot of great things. Immense respect for Google for what they are doing. The concern has been that they are abusing the dominant issue. Moving on, how would you assess the performance of matrimony.com in this year? And what is the growth that you've seen? And how are you looking to close the financial year? See, we've been growing of CAJRA around 71% in the likes of consumer growth showing in India. But definitely we're taking steps to accelerate our growth. We are looking at launching new initiatives. We are going to launch LOW.com, ELUB.com is a matchmaking app for people to want to find a meaningful LOW. We announced the launch of Mera LOW, excluding dating platform Indian Americans. So we have some new initiatives which are planned and launched. We hope that combination of the new initiatives, plus there are plans to accelerate a growth in existing services that we are operating. And for elite matrimony, we also started setting up KIAs in the airport. And some of the airport is at elite matrimony KIAs. So we are looking at some new initiatives, new expansion strategies. We hope that combination of both new initiatives, plus the strategy working on driving the growth in existing initiatives will offer better growth in the coming years. You just highlighted some of your new business models that was your weddingbasad.com, mandel.com and community matrimony.com. Can you elaborate a little bit more, how did this help your company and what would it add to the bottom line? What has been the additional Red Room Bazaar, mandel.com. I've been there for a while. And so this year the plan is to, I've been working on to get to the breaking level. We hope coming quarters we'll have to touch the breaking on these business. Mandel.com is a venue discovery platform. There are people looking at booking a wedding venue. We have close to over 50,000 venues listed on mandel.com. So the weddingbasad is a marketplace for wedding services. One wants to find a photographer, makeup artist, planners and the main the artist. They can find those people in our platform. It's a marketplace for wedding services. Sir, last year I just want to also get one input from you on your marketing. You had fabulous campaigns last year. Be it the controversial but really thought-provoking holy campaign. Then when you introduce Arvind Ayer AI and now also your recent campaign with Vidya Balan which focused on cyber security, which focused on the importance of being safe online. So how has your marketing and advertising also evolved this year? My credit goes to my marketing team. They did a great job. And even our TV campaign on matchmaking is finding life based on obvious and interest. So because a lot of youngsters, they look for match, matching their obvious and interest. So that was the current TV campaign we do for BharatMateemi.com. So we continue to look at the core insights. Because for BharatMateemi always being there, helping people to find the right life partner and help them with their happy married life. So we look for the core insight. One of the commercial is rated as the top 10 commercial top by Aknami 10 years ago or I don't know exactly which year. The Suda, we call it Suda commercial internally is basically how the husband is supporting the wife she wants to work. Because the thing is about, so get married to someone who cares for what you love as an insight. If you are really passionate about work, get married to someone who's working with that. If you don't get married to that person, obviously that person you don't work. Or if you want to be a dancer, get married to someone who support your passion. So if you are passionate about something, get married to someone who support your passion. That was because majority of women wants to work. They want to get married to the husband who are working with the woman working in the under. So that was the equality committed to Dhoni. Because they actually equaled in the relationship. So like we already look for the, it's not about for a campaign campaign, further about the core insight or the transmission we want to bring to the society. It's important that there's equality in the relationship, that Dhoni comes to launch equality. Like that you look for core insight for the marketing not being okay, communicating the brand. They're communicating either core insights or transforming the changes which you want to bring to the society. So would you be looking at upping your advertising addicts or advertising revenue next year? Are you looking to increase it? We spend around 170 crore on marketing every year. Yeah, every year the marketing spend is continuing to rise. Yeah, it may further go. So you know, privacy is very important for all individuals because particularly when it comes to women, you know, who put out their details on the website, on the app, on the website. So and this is also related to cybersecurity measures. So can you just tell us, you know, what are the cybersecurity measures that you have undertaken to curb cyber frauds? Yeah, one thing what you're seeing is that, I think thanks to the growth of social media, today, actually, people are putting a lot more information everywhere. Today, people are, I don't think anymore of this kind of inhibition of putting information. In fact, today people are putting much more photos on social media, much more thing on everywhere. So when you started, it was not the case. In the matrimony, one of us said, we have put the photos. Now today, all the like Instagram, other thing like, you know, Facebook, which was not even there when you started. So that we can actually, you know, people, people are sharing information that it's not an issue. And also we even all the control to the users, really the user choice, what they want to show, what they want to limit okay. If they want to photo, I might want my photos to be seen only by the people who might contact or accept that option is there. So like the lot of control, my phone number, whether I want to keep it, you know, only to the paid members or I don't want anyone to see the phone number. I think for our thing about, yes, it is about your profile, you have the complete control over what information you want to show, what information you don't want to show. If there are certain, if you have the photo open, you'll get a better response. If you don't have the photo open, yeah, the response goes down. It is choice, you have the exercise and all the things. But as a platform, you can all the choices to use. Sir, you also recently launched Mira Love, an exclusive dating app for Americans. What prompted this move to this dating app space from the matrimony space? See, when I was in the US, I went to the US in the year 1986. So a lot of my friends, you know, because rather that I was 24, 25 years old, a lot of my friends, you know, a lot of Indians moved to the US in the late 90s. Today, I have a lot of friends in the US and today they are son of daughter. Either the children born in India now all become US citizens or the children born in the US are US citizens. Today, they are around 23, 24, that's age group. And they are pretty much American, whether Indian, but again, it is a combination Indian plus American, they want to date. At the same time, there is a preference of a wanted date Indian person to large extent. Okay, I think that's the population had grown over a fair time because late 90s where the first wave of migration happened to the US that continue and post 2000 also. So I think we see there's opportunity for Indian Americans because they want to date dating and they want to, the preference about do a dating among Indians. We thought why not try it out as to see dating of Indian Americans and see how it goes. So it's one of the, well, you see matrimonial known for all various segmentation. We run 300 plus matrimonial site, religion, community, special sites. We thought, okay, let's have one more this offering and see how it goes. The service becomes successful here, probably may expand to other countries also. So you know, Tinder and all have also become quite popular in India, particularly with the Gen Z generation. So would you look at also extending Mira Love to India and other markets? India is love.com, luv.com. We are going to launch love.com in the next couple of months. It's not a dating site. It's a relationship site. It's helped people to find a meaningful relationship. It's basically a, you know, there are people, okay, I want to fall in love and I want to interact or, you know, spend time, I mean, talk to each other, understand better. There are people have different approach towards how they want to get married. We can come to matrimonial site, you know, they search contact, they also have the feeling of, okay, I'm in a control of my thing. They have the feeling of, okay, falling in love through matrimonial site. Now this is another choice of falling in love through our luv.com. So it's a choice given to users. Matrimonial site come, see, prosper, talk to them, understand, get married. You know, the immediate goal is in love.com doesn't immediate goal of getting married. That way people want to take immediate goal out, but mostly to fall in love, then you decide when you want to get married. And finally, sir, looking ahead, what else can we expect from matrimony.com in terms of new initiative? You've just mentioned when you launch expansion growth. What can you tell us? Yeah, we'll continue to look at what are the opportunities in the matchmaking space. Mara love on love.com is an outcome of that strategy. Can you look for opportunity to expand and try to get in on some adjacent area as possible? Yeah, we continue to evaluate this option. Thank you so much for taking time out from your busy schedule. Thank you so much again for taking time out to speak to us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.