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What women want? Tinder knows

Hindustan Times | By, New Delhi
May 09, 2016 12:55 PM IST

It’s proved, women are more talkative. Tinder, the world’s largest dating app, which was launched in 2012, claims that people in India chat more than the global average, with women leading the race.

It’s proved, women are more talkative.

Tinder’s country head Taru Kapoor
Tinder’s country head Taru Kapoor

Tinder, the world’s largest dating app, which was launched in 2012, claims that people in India chat more than the global average, with women leading the race.

“People in India chat three times more than Tinder’s global average,” said Taru Kapoor, country head of Tinder.

The location-based dating app, which competes with the likes of TrulyMadly and Woo, connects strangers during the time when communication is reduced to just likes and shares on Facebook.

Kapoor added girls in India find it awkward to walk up to a guy and initiate a chat, especially if the boy’s a stranger.

“That’s the reason why women are more active than men on Tinder in India,” she said.

And, India is now not just one among the top five growing markets of the app, but is also the fastest-growing market in Asia. The company did not share any India-specific numbers, but if scale can be measured, it gets 14 million swipes every day.

Every time you like a profile, you swipe right, and if the person on the other side likes you, a connection is formed. Once that happens, both of them can start chatting and take it from there.

One such connection was between this journalist and Shweta (name changed), 31, 13-kilometers away.

“What are you doing?” the journalist writes. “Watching a movie – The Notebook,” she writes back. That’s the Ryan Gosling movie, based on Nicholas Spark’s book of an extraordinary love story between a poor country boy and a rich city girl that spans over decades.

But, who wants to wait for a decade these days? Finding a match on Tinder is much more easier and faster.

What brings Shweta to the app?

“Men (followed by a wink emoticon)... And me being single (another wink)…” she writes.

Tinder, used mostly by people between 18-30 years of age, works everywhere, even when you are in a train. It uses location-based tools to show people around you, who are on Tinder.

But, unlike Facebook that connects people you know, Tinder is about the unknown people. “Anything can happen over Tinder – there have been a lot of marriages, a lot of babies, many friendships and a lot of stories… People travel to new cities and find friends here,” said Kapoor.

Truly Madly and Woo have in excess of two million users. Experts said that Tinder has more than that. Maybe, that’s why India, which is the world’s second-largest smartphones market, is the first market outside of the US to have a regional headquarters.

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