Match-making goes mobile in India

Mobile phones have changed the way India communicates, but now they are even poised to alter the way Indians go about picking out their life partners.

The match-making service will expectedly lure the young and lonely

Beginning on Wednesday, a consortium of four major mobile telephone companies have begun extending cellular match-making services to their subscribers.

The four operators—BPL Mobile, RPG Cellulor, Escotel and Spice Telecom—have a combined subscriber base of three million users.

Subscribers would need to send only a text message to enroll and launch their hunt for a lifelong mate on their cell phones.

The new add-on service will expectedly spice up lives of lonely souls and help them in connecting with their soul mates.

The mobile operators on their part hope their cash registers would start ringing as well.

“The marriage industry is one of the biggest industries in India,” vouches Umang Das, managing director of corporate affairs of Spice Telecom.

“There is a huge investment and expense involved. Here is a religious ceremony involving all the relations of the family,” he said.

Besides winning over the loyalty of its existing subscribers,  the operators expect the new service would lure more customers to their fold.

By conservative estimates, they expect their earnings from value-added services to go up by at least 10 percent.

During a five-day test of the matrimonial service, more than 10,000 subscribers showed interest in the service.

“We launched the service in all our 600 towns today and the subscribers are bound to go up,” said FB Cardoso, chief executive of BPL Mobile.

“The vital factor here is we are covered nationally and customers will get instant matches and do not have to wait or scan the newspapers as is the case now,”  he added.

Courtesy to cellular phones, cupid now could only be a call away.

Source: News Agencies