'Our Focus Is On Establishing Tinder Brand In India'

Taru Kapoor, India head of Tinder, which has recently set up operations in the country--its first outside the United States--talks about the Indian dating scenario and the challenges of the Indian market. Launched in 2012, Tinder is the world's major social dating app. It has membership in 196 countries where 26 million matches are made on it with more than 10 billion matches made to date, according to several reports. Edited excerpts

About Tinder
Tinder was originally conceptualized in 2012 by its founders in the US. The app was built to solve an everyday, human problem -- to eliminate barriers in meeting new people. With Tinder, users are empowered to make new connections and there is no fear of rejection thanks to Tinder's innovative double opt-in. Tinder connects you with like-minded people and helps you have engaging conversations, make new friends, find a date or life partner and puts you in control of your social interactions. These interactions open up possibilities that might not have existed in the offline world.

While dating and romance have been Tinder's most popular use cases, Tinder is really an effective way to meet new people today. Just as Facebook and Instagram are scaled networks that enable you to communicate with your existing connections, Tinder is a scaled network that allows you to actually meet new people anywhere in the world.

The product enables a simple, intuitive yet personalized experience because of which Tinder has been adopted in large numbers by users all over the world. We are present in 196 countries across the world and growing robustly.

Tinder is growing rapidly in markets around the world. India has seen a strong organic growth and is among Tinder's top five growing markets and the largest in Asia. Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are some other notable markets in APAC.

On India strategy
We do not share local or global strategy. Our focus is on establishing the Tinder brand in India, steering its explosive user growth and increasing user engagement by focusing on local user needs.

On the challenges of the Indian market
We believe that the conservative Indian mind set is steadily shifting and it's only a matter of time before it adapts to Tinder's ideology. Before Tinder, women often felt overwhelmed using traditional dating sites because men could message anyone they wanted to - whether the woman was interested in connecting or not. Tinder introduced something brand new to empower female users: the double opt-in. Users can only contact one another if they both mutually express interest in connecting. In Tinder's case, this interest is indicated by swiping right. This simple feature mirrors behaviour in real life - and has played a major role in changing the way that people feel about dating apps.

With Tinder, users are empowered to make new connections with those that have shared interests and there is no fear of rejection. Tinder enables engaging conversations and meaningful connections. On Tinder you can learn more about a potential match than in real life thanks to the authentication via Facebook that allows users to see who their common friends are and what interests they share, as well as any other information they may share in their bio, placing the power directly in the hands of users who can choose whom they would like to connect with. And, of course, you know that they're interested in meeting someone new. For example, I recently met someone in Bangalore who has formed an alternative music band, and he met 3 of the 4 of his fellow band members on Tinder.

These innovations make Tinder a great tool to meet someone new regardless of your existing personal or family connections.. That is why Tinder has simply become the way people meet today around the world. We reached 100 million downloads in just 3 years - far more than anyone before us.

On long-term goals
Tinder in India has incredible potential. With over 160 million smartphone users, India is one of the largest and most exciting markets in the world already, and this number is rapidly growing. Indian youth are mobile?first global citizens.