Friday, March 31, 2006

Online Listings / Classifieds businesses in India


This business is a personal favourite. I believe that the achievement of scale in this segment has led various stakeholders to reaffirm their belief in the Indian Internet space !

The estimated size of online classifieds business is around US$ 55 million (INR 250 crores). It today is one of the larger online business segments in India and is growing at more than 100% y-o-y. In fact it is already started posing grave threat to the growth of the print business which is growing at a more sedate pace of 10-15%.

I am putting some of my estimated numbers:

Jobs / Recruitment
Print : Rs. 100 crores
Online: Rs. 200 crores

Total Classifieds business
Print: Rs. 500 crores
Online: Rs. 250 crores

Advertising revenues
All media: Rs. 12,000 crores
Online: Rs. 400 crores (including online classifieds)

Key takes from the above:

  • Online classifieds business (Rs 250 crores) is larger than online advertising business wihtout classifieds (Rs. 150 crore)
  • Online ad industry is just 3.3% of total ad industry. Whereas online classifieds are already 33% of the total classifieds business.
  • Online classifieds as percentage to total online advertising at 62.5% is disproportionately large when we compare it with classifieds as percentage of total media advertising volumes which is at just 4.3%.
  • Online jobs as a category is double the size of print already!

What is making online classifieds grow this fast? Two main reasons - firstly online medium helps fulfils the need better in classifieds space than the offline medium. Secondly, and more important is the aggressive sales approach taken by the online classifieds players. They have put a humongous number of feet-on-street to solicit listings from all kind of recruiters starting from large companies down to small businesses. Currently there will be more than 1,000 people selling listings of various jobs portals across the country.

It will remain interesting to observe the growth rates over the next 1-2 years of both print as well as online classifieds.

Update : 10th April 2006

TV18 acquires 50% in JobStreet India For $2 Million : Content Sutra

Related Link

http://www.contentsutra.com/the-state-of-indias-online-classifieds-market

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is amazing that online job revenues have already crossed print business ! very good insight.

SanjeevBikhchandani said...

A few comments

The print job ad number of 100 crores mentioned by Anurag is for classified print job ads only. It does not include display print job ads (ascent etc.). If those were included then the print figure would be closer to Rs. 400 crores.

And yes it is true that the total job portal revenue in India for the year just over would be around Rs. 140 to 150 crores however more than 65% of this comes from resume database access (where print publications cannot compete). Online job ads only contribute around 50 crores.

So another comparison would be 50 crores to 400 crores when comparing online job ads to print job ads. We still have some distance to travel.

The significant thing however is that jobsites are growing at 80% per annum whereas print job ads are growing by 20%. So the gap should narrow.

Another significant statistic is that almost all of the 250 crores online classifieds comes from Jobs and matrimonials. Other categories are virtually non existent.

And Anurag is absolutely right when he says that it is the success of the jobsites and the matrimonial sites is what has significantly contributed to the reaffirmation of faith in Internet advertising in India.

And yes it has happened because the players in these two spaces made the market happen by putting in the effort and the resources.

Anonymous said...

Anurag & Sanjeev,
Thank for providing very useful information about the Online Classifieds market in India.
Is it possible provide further breakdown on the other classifieds.
Matrimonial ,
Vehicles (Especially based on ebay's claim) and
the upcoming RealEsate Classifieds market.

SanjeevBikhchandani said...

Ravi - the problem is that nobody announces their numbers in public. So while the media has in the past reported that the online matrimonial listings market is 120 crores plus the truth is that this estimate was based on overstated numbers indicated by industry players to journalists.

The real revenue figure for matrimonial listings in the financial year just concluded is probably in the region of 60 to 70 crores.

I would therefore put the total online classifieds market at between 210 to 230 crores with less than 10 crores coming from spaces other than matrimonials and jobs.

What it means to me is that the opportunity is huge - if it can be done in print it can be done online in most cases. Somebody has got to execute well and make it happen.

Anurag Gupta said...

Thanks Sanjeev for your personal insights of this business.

It of course would be very interesting to see other classifieds categories being monetised apart from just Jobs, Matrimonials and to some extent real estate now. Rediff is trying to do that with their pay4clicks business. Other players are just giving free listings right now in the anticipation of revenue opportunities in the future.

Ravi - It will be very interesting to have your own experiences in this field.

Anonymous said...

Looks like the matrimonial market is $40 - $50 Million.
Source:
http://www.alootechie.com/News/908.asp
According to Anupam Mittal, managing director of the first Indian match-making site Shaadi.com, this site has at least a 50% share of the $40 million to $50 million market. He expects the 5-year-old company to take in $25 million in the 12 months ending March 31 and projects 100% growth annually for several years.

Anurag Gupta said...

Thanks Ravi for the update on matrimonial market. I however would agree with Sanjeev on the online matrimonial market size to be around 60-70 crores. The numbers reported in Alootechie may have a significant portion of offine revenues as well.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Sanjeev. Here are few of our B2C E-commerce market numbers.
The online Job portals revenues in the year 2005-06 were Rs.135 crores. The market is expected to grow to around Rs.190 crores in the financial year 2006-07.

Next, as per Sanjeev, the real revenue figure for matrimonial listings in the financial year just concluded is probably in the region of 60 to 70 crores. This seems to be little more than what we estimated.
Our estimate suggests the matrimony market to be around 40 crores for the year 2005-06. However if we add online dating market on top of it even then the market size won’t exceed 50 crores max. The growth rate for matrimony market has been quite low in last few years however this financial year seems to be a promising year for this sector.

Further, I agree with his statement that the major portion of the online classifieds market comes from Jobs and matrimonial. Other B2C sectors like e-gifts and
E-broking etc., contributes a very less part to the online classifieds market revenues.


Vikram Bhardwaj
http://www.estatsindia.com
Cell: +91 9810474007

Anonymous said...

Dear Anurag,

Thank you veru much for providing this information. Can you please provide the methodology that you used to arrive at your figures, especially the size of the print jobs/recruitment business (Rs. 100 crores), the total classifieds business (Rs. 500 crores), and the advertising revenues.

Also, you mention in one of your replies that the matrimonial figures in Alootechie could have an offline component. Do you have an idea how large the offline matrimonial classified market is?

Thank you once again. You are providing a singular service which is much appreciated.

Best regards,

Sunil

Anonymous said...

I visited a very interesting classifieds site called khichdee.com the other day. Unlike other sites which display ads that have been posted on them, Khichdee "slurps" classified ads that have appeared on other sites such as shaadi.com, naukri.com, indiaproperties.com, indiacar.com etc. and links back to these specific sites post-search. The advantage here is that one's search is very efficient because one is not viewing ads from a single website but an aggregate of multiple sites. At current count, the site had over 3 lakh ads that were searchable- a google for classifieds in India!

I think , therefore i may be said...

Hi Anurag, Ravi ,Sanjay and sanjeev


Thank you for the info. It is quite useful. Is there a site where we an compare world stats and see where all this is leading.

Also what are % of the various categories_ i guess jobs, rentals, matrimonials and auto take a lion share - but any figures. what about others.

who are the major players in online classified market today.

what% do the portals own?

what about newspapers online classifieds market%

may be too many questions but the idea is even if any of u know any set of answers i am happy

Ram

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I've gone through the discussions and have learnt a lot. Thanks everyone!

Pardon my asking, but I have a very basic question. I can understand how a figure of 500 Crore is arrived at for print classifieds, but what is the methodology for computing the revenues for online classifieds?

The reason I am asking is that so many sites seem to follow different revenue models - sulekha charges on pay per response, others host classifieds for free and charge for banner ads, etc.

So how do we calculate the entire segment's yearly revenue? And does this include revenue from banner ads as well?

Hope to hear from someone on this.

Thanks,
Viren

Anonymous said...

Interesting article on the growth of jobs and matrimony as 2 super sections in online classifieds.

we are, however, now witnessing some growth in real estate and automobiles and given the convenience of such service to the user, he would be willing to pay for it.

rahul
http://www.clickindia.com/

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Unknown said...

Has anyone tried classifieds on television..?
Anywhere in the world..?
What could be the pros and cons
We tried Opportunities on television. Sold half an hour show as 30 sec slots.

Thanks in advance

Raj

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Anonymous said...

Amazing figures and statistics! Good study. Good article. Good posts. But why are people advertising here?

Unknown said...

I suggest you this new indian classified web site: www.Tao01.com

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Maya said...

the whole online classified thing is a ripple effect of google's ptc advertising network.

nearly all the indian classified sites are using it, and its the most prominent revenue stream that is keeping them in business

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NaukriForWomen.com said...

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Mozili.com said...

nice insight into classifieds market in india....with this pace the market size would have grown beyond 300 crores now... I would request people to check out a recent addition into the list of classifieds website Mozili.com and provide your honest feedback.

Sheetal Malpani said...

Anurag..appreciate your comments on the online job market and potential.

I am reserach analyst with one of the leading broking house and doing research on ONLINE JOB RECRUITMENT market. can u give me some data on total print job classified and display marekt? How the market share has chaned between online and print in job category?