Shashwati.Shankar@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: Tanvi Gandhi, 25, might say herTinder expedition has been successful after re-cently getting engaged to Tarun Sharma, altho-ugh she wasn’t on the dating app merely to finda mate.

“With the number of cool options on datingapps, like playing games to fixing up a date at anearby coffee shop, it makes it so much easier toget to know people outside of your friends cir-cle and understand who is right for you,” saidGandhi (name changed). Dating apps, she said,are the hottest tool for matchmaking amongher friends and cousins.

For the original digital-era matchmakers-—matrimonial websites such as Bharat Mat-rimony and Shaadi.com, both founded in1997—that coolness factor and the growing ca-sual acceptance of dating apps in otherwisetradition-confined small cities and towns ha-ve emerged as a giant threat. Matrimonialwebsites began life as digital brokers for pa-rents seeking a match for their children, apractice rapidly waning.

“We attract more independent-minded userswho want to take control of finding their part-ners themselves versus relying upon their pa-rents,” said Sachin Bhatia, chief executive ofTrulyMadly. The Delhi-headquartered datingapp has more than 3 million app installs and atleast 100,000 daily active users, nearly half ofthem from outside the big metro cities.

In all, TrulyMadly, Woo and Tinder—leadingdating apps in India—have more than 1 millionmonthly active users in the country, accordingto a report in tech journal iGadgetsworld. Whi-le data for matrimonial websites were not avai-lable, experts foresee dating apps catching up.

Ritesh Banglani, who led an investment inTrulyMadly last year while at Helion VenturePartners, said 25-35% of the “users on datingapps are looking at marriage; these apps will

eat up the market share of matrimonial sites.”Helion, along with Kae Capital, invested .̀ 35crore in TrulyMadly in March 2015.

“The trend of arranged marriages is likelyto continue to decline... (and) the logical nextstep for matrimonial sites would be to stay re-levant in the market either by innovating oraiming to acquire a leading dating app in In-dia,” said Banglani, now a partner at StellarisVenture Partners.

IPO-bound Matrimony.com, which operatesBharatmatrimony.com, acquired Matchify inApril last year but CEO Murugavel Janakira-

man insists that dating apps aren’t able to scaleup or make money in the Indian market. “Wetried out Matchify (but) India has a largely tra-ditional user base so these apps are not going towork here,” he said.

Gourav Rakshit, CEO of Shaadi.com, conce-ded that although the website gets about11,000 new registrations everyday many of itsusers are prevalent on dating apps as well.“We did think there was a possibility of losingout to dating apps, which is why we tried themout and found our users also existent on thoseapps,” said Rakshit. “But we do believe thatwe cater to a different market. There will bean overlap in our users trying out differentmatchmaking mediums.”

TrulyMadly, Tinder and Woo don’t believemonetization will be difficult. Consideringthat there are 25 million singles in India, thesize of the country’s dating app industry is es-timated to be about $1.5 billion, according toTrulyMadly’s Bhatia and Sumesh Menon,CEO of Woo. Dating apps are making moneythrough advertisments & micro transactionsin the form of paid features. “We started mo-netising earlier this year and are on track toachieve .̀ 15 crore for 2017,” said Bhatia. “Wehave seen a 40% increase in paid ‘likes’ thatare our members get through our paid featureSparks, which enables users to directly mes-sage their matches with contextual messageson their profile.”

Gurgaon-headquarted Woo offers paid packa-ges ranging from .̀ 250 to .̀ 800 for features suchas allowing users to record seven-second voiceclips or access a customised listof questions to send to peoplebased on specific interests.

Forget Matrimonial Sites, Indiansare Hooked to Dating Apps Now

Wooing GenNextOver 1 millionmonthly users across leading dating apps TrulyMadly, Woo and Tinder

25-35%of dating app users looking at marriage

These apps make money through advertisments and paid features

With 25 millionsingles in India; Indian dating app industry estimated to be

$1.5 billion

15�WWW.ECONOMICTIMES.COM

Companies: Pursuit of Profit

Govt of Bihar

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Website : www.prdbihar.gov.inPR-8478(Police)16-17

GOVT OF BIHAR

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Website : www.prdbihar.gov.inPR-8298(N.N.)16-17

Govt of Bihar

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Website : www.prdbihar.gov.inPR-8385(N.N.)16-17

Vikas.Dandekar@timesgroup.com

Mumbai: Hyderabad-based AurobindoPharma has expressed preliminary in-terest in acquiring Portuguese drug ma-ker Generis Farmaceutica for about $200million. Generis has a presence acrossanti-infective, respiratory, anti-diabetesand dermatology drugs and sells to ho-spitals, clinics and pharmacies besideshaving a contract manufacturing andanalytical services arm.

Aurobindo’s latest bid comes on theheels of an earlier shot at Israeli-drugmaker Teva’s UK product portfolio,where it was outbid by rival Intas Phar-maceuticals last month. The family-ow-ned Ahmedabad company paid a whop-ping $764 million to bolster its Europe-an operations.

Aurobindo’s move to buy the Portugue-se firm is seen as resurrection of an earli-er interest after its Teva chase was foiled.The Generis deal is on the table for thepast few months, it fits Aurobindo’s valu-

ation range and its ambitions in Europe.“But final outcome is not very clear,” anindustry executive informed ET, addingsome other drug makers are also in thecontention. Generis generated sales ofaround $60 million last year.

Aurobindo and Gene-ris did not respond to qu-estions from ET sentlast week.

Aurobindo has beenamong Indian drug ma-kers keen on acquisi-tion-led growth of its in-ternational operations.Its global sales reached13,896 crore in FY16, gro-wing from .̀ 5,855 crore

in FY13. In Europe, Aurobindo’s salesshot to .̀ 3,130 crore last year, an 88%CAGR from .̀ 468 crore 2013.

The company wants to consolidate itspresence among the top ten players inmarkets it is present in Europe. The topEuropean countries for Aurobindo areFrance, Germany, Netherlands, Spain,

UK, Portugal Italy and Romania.At a recent investor presentation the

company said lower generics penetra-tion in Italy, Spain and France offer fu-

ture growth as share of generics impro-ve. It is also targeting extended presen-ce in certain East European markets.

Although generics are beginning to

show green shoots slowly in the Euro-pean markets, a few within the Indianindustry believe it to be a difficult mar-ket due to its scattered healthcare sy-stems, a slow economic growth rate, ne-ar stagnating healthcare spends and li-mited scope to increase prices due totender-based procurements in key mar-kets. Besides securing manufacturingefficiencies remains a challenge.

Aurobindo has worked around those is-sues and fared better compared to most ofits Indian peers. Two years ago, Aurobin-do acquired the European business ofthe erstwhile Acatavis which incurredlosses in the early phase. It has startedshowing signs of a turnaround in the lastfew quarters.

In recent times, Indian drug makers ha-ve turned aggressive bidders for inter-national assets. Last month, it was re-ported that Sun and Lupin were among ahandful of parties interested in buyingthe dermatology assets of German giantBayer for a deal that may be priced atover $1billion.

Aurobindo Looks to Buy Portuguese Drug Co Hyderabad-based pharma co may spend $200 m on Generis, which has a presence across anti-infective, anti-diabetes & dermatology drugs

Taking a Shot Generis makes a broad range of products and supplies to hospitals, clinics and pharmacies

It also has contract manufacturing and analytical services arm

Aurobindo’s latest bid comes on the heels on an earlier shot at Israeli-drug maker Teva’s UK product portfolio

It aims to be in top ten players in key Europe markets

Co plans to extend to East European markets and augment products

European Challenges: Scattered health systems, slow economic growth, limited pricing flexibility due to tender based procurements and manufacturing related efficiencies

`13896 cr: Aurobindo’s FY16 global sales

`3130 cr: Co’s FY16 Europe salesIn recent

times, Indiandrugcompanieshave turnedaggressivebidders forinternationalassets

Anirban.Chowdhury@timesgroup.com

Mumbai: Jet Airways had to cancelclose to 50 flights across the countryand delay several others on the backof a crew shortage on Wednesday, fi-ve people in the know said.

The shortage stemmed from some is-sues the airline's pilots had with a newrostering system it has put in place, sa-id three of the people mentioned abo-ve. Jet operates more than 600 domes-tic and international flights daily. Air-port executives in Delhi, Mumbai,Bangalore and Hyderabad said Jetcancelled a total of 25 flights, while anexecutive at the state-run AirportsAuthority of India said more than 20additional flights were cancelled inthe rest of the country.

“Jet has put in place anew rostering systemthat, optimises the resthours of some of them.They haven't been happywith that,” said one of

the people quoted above. He added thatthe shortage started since Diwaliwhen some crew didn't report forflight operations. That led to reschedu-ling of flights, which ultimately casca-ded to cancellations on Wednesday.

A Jet spokesperson later said the is-sues have been resolved. “Jet Airwaysis pleased to announce that operationsacross its entire network have retur-ned to normal, following the resolu-tion of issues caused by the non-avai-lability of an unusually high numberof pilots who had reported sick. Thishad resulted in the disruption of certa-in flight schedules, causing inconveni-ence to the airlines’ guests,” he said.

On queries of rostering, he said,“Rest hours are mandated by theDGCA and Jet remains compliant.”

Crew ShortageForces Jet toCancel Flights

The apps steadily gain traction

owing to the coolness factor and

the growing acceptance of

dating apps even outside metros

SACHIN BHATIACEO, TrulyMadly

We attract more independent-minded users who want to takecontrol of finding their partnersthemselves than relying upontheir parents

Madhvi.Sally@timesgroup.com

New Delhi: Air pollution levels in thenational capital are expected to rema-in severe for at least three more days,unless wind speed picks up signifi-cantly from the current one kilometreper hour rate, say scientists.

“Air pollution levels will prevail at se-vere and very poor conditions for thenext three days owing to calm wind con-ditions, drop in minimum temperatureand burning of biomass in Punjab andHaryana. We are not expecting rains inDelhi in the next 2-3 days, so air qualitywill not improve,” said an official at theSystem of Air Quality and Weather Fo-recasting and Research (Safar).

Compared to 2015, air pollution levelsin Delhi were two to three times higheron an average, at 200 microgram percubic metre during Diwali period.Bursting of firecrackers during Diwa-li added to deterioration in air quality,aggravating respiratory problems forasthma and heart patients. Levels ofparticulate matter 2.5—or fine parti-cles smaller than 2.5 micrometres—o-ver Delhi stood at a ‘severe’ 348 micro-gram per cubic metre as of November2, according to Safar.

Delhi Air PollutionLevels to RemainSevere for 3 Days