Mobile-cupid strikes small towns, too

User base of dating apps in tier-II, -III towns on a par with metros; women in smaller cities outnumber urban peers in dating app usage

It is Valentine’s Day and if the current trends are to be believed, dating is no longer a thing of the metros alone.

Like most business-to-consumer (B2C) technology offerings in India, mobile applications (app) that help individuals find partners for dating are finding many takers in tier-II and tier-III cities. In fact, in several cases, the penetration of the dating mobile applications is higher in cities like Chandigarh and Ahmedabad than the metros.

According to Rahul Kumar, co-founder of dating app Truly Madly, his company had begun to focus only on metro cities. But, the one-year-old app now has 40 per cent of its users based in smaller towns and cities. “It is surprising that such a  significant percentage of our users are from tier-II and tier-III cities; especially, given that this is without any marketing in those areas,”  Kumar said.

Truly Madly, which was launched on February 14, 2014, has been downloaded 200,000 times on the Google Play Store.

Consumers in the tier-II and tier-III cities of India have been fast-adopters of Internet-based offerings primarily due to the deep penetration of smartphones and Internet.  India has the world’s third-largest population of Internet users, even as only a fifth of its population is online.

Woo, another dating app that has been downloaded over 850,000 times since its launch less than a year ago, also has at least 50 per cent of users in the smaller cities and towns.

“Our traction in tier-II and -III cities versus tier-I cities is 50:50,” said Sumesh Menon, chief executive officer and co-founder of Woo. “We were focused on metros at first but as the app started getting popular, we were getting mails from smaller cities asking if when are we launching there as well. So by December 2014, we had to roll it out across most parts of India.”

Truly Madly and Woo, both have several active users in cities like Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, and Pune, with the average age of their users ranging from 21 years to 26 years.

Busting another myth, that bringing females to the application in smaller cities would be a challenge, the number of female users from tier-II and tier-III cities outnumber those from the metros. According Menon, this trend is because the aspiration levels of people across small and large cities are the same.

Truly Madly’s Kumar highlights: “The girls in the metros have more social avenues to meet up with new people while those in the smaller cities have limited options for the same.” In addition, Kumar said, women from smaller towns who aspire to move to the metros for their studies or a job, often use these apps to connect with men from bigger cities.

Keeping these trends in mind, Truly Madly now plans to focus their services in tier-II and tier-III cities as they hope to see more traction and engagement in these areas.