SMS GupShup crosses 45 million mark

SMS GupShup, India's largest group messaging company and social network, crossed 45 million users online. SMS GupShup allows users to create communities on the mobile and broadcast them. Launched in April 2007, SMS GupShup (spawned from Webaroo) processes over 2 billion messages per month (up from 480 million messages a year ago) and is adding over 1 million members per month. The start-up has seen rapid growth in users primarily due to the immense popularity of mobile devices in India.

Online Gifting Is a Rs 1,000 Cr Market: Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO, Consim Info

Murugavel Janakiraman is the founder and CEO of Consim Info Pvt Ltd, one of India’s top Internet players whose flagship is Bharatmatrimony.com. Consim Info Pvt Ltd just launched an e-commerce portal Matrimonygifts.com and is readying to launch another portal in the matrimonial space this week. In conversation with Techcircle.in, Janakiraman discusses the opportunity in online gifting, the traction seen, and Consim’s online and offline plans for the year.

How many sites does Consim Info Pvt Ltd run in all?

We run 300 sites under Community Matrimony and 15 sites under Bharatmatrimony.

How many active users do you have and how has this grown compared to last year?

We have a total of 20 million registered users across all portals and 3 million active users in all. This user base is growing at 20-30% year on year.

Another Dot-com Boom

A dot-com boom in India is attracting major venture capitalists and other investors from the U.S. and Europe. Modeled on companies like Amazon, Groupon, eBay and Netflix, the Indian firms are overcoming infrastructural constraints such as low Internet penetration to generate impressive revenues and expand their customer bases. It’s a matter of time before e-commerce picks up speed in India, according to Wharton faculty and some dot-com entrepreneurs.

Among the high fliers is Kunal Bahl, 29, founder and CEO of Delhi-based Jasper, better known by its ecommerce site SnapDeal.com. The online retailer sells discounted “perishable distressed inventory” of products and services such as holiday getaways, beauty parlor and gym coupons, sunglasses and watches. A 2006 graduate from Wharton’s management and technology program, Bahl founded SnapDeal in February 2010. It is growing its subscriber base of four million by a million new users each month, and expects to have revenues of $20 million this year.