OPW -- May 25 -- The Asian internet dating and social networking conference (a.k.a friends-making) was well attended with ~45 people, and increase of 25% over last year. Not a touch on the Miami conference which had 350+ attendees, but hey, this is a (very) emerging market. It's a market with a lot of challenges. Here's some keypoints from a couple of my favorite presentations. - Mark Brooks



51friend.net - Serious Dating

- 3 million couples divorced each year.

- Tens of thousands of offline events in China.

- From 1980, only one child per couple, so young generation tend to be well educated and choosy.

- Over 4 million students graduate from uni each year.

- 20% divorce. 10% marrieds not happy.



Yeeyoo - Social Network

- 'Matchmaking' and 'dating' is known as 'serious dating'

- 114 million internet users in China; 2 or 3 people use each computer

- 414 million wireless users

- Yeeyoo offers an anonymous calling service which makes 1-2 RMB per min

- Meetic acquired Yeeyoo for $20 million

- Meetic made $100 million revenue last year and 8% was from mobile

- Mobile could be the same size as online dating in the next 5 years

- Yeeyoo won't be charging for membership, not possible, lack of payment systems, will sign another deal like their China.com cobrand deal. No profit in mind. They have a lot of loss in mind. Meetic is being introduced to China on top of Yeeyoo.

- Text messages are 1-2 RMB. 15/85 split with China Mobile, 15% to the carrier

- Takes 2-3 months to get the payment

- 10% lost through bad debts or fraud



96333.com - Paid Dating Service

- Few Chinese have credit cards.

- But, 800 million have debit cards. However, there's no auto renewals on debit cards.

- Billing available through mobile telecom operator billing partners with auto renews. Conversions are good because it's very convenient. Cons: Capped at RMB 10 per month and only monthly subscriptions available.

- There are no credit rating services in China i.e. no experian/Transunions yet



99Bill - Leading Chinese Billing Service

- 99Bill has 230 employees, 28 months old, has 16 million registered accounts.

- Can bill from 97% of credit and debit cards and 150 million prepaid cards and stored value card holders which are popular with the younger generation.

- 99Bill offers recurring billing, most others can't, 99Bill has advanced risk mgmt system

- Economy Growth: 8-10% annual growth in GDP

- 71 banks offer online banking

- 760k merchants, 900k POS, 400k ATMs

- 3G coming in 2008



YeePay - Another Chinese Biling Service

- There are no personal checks in China

- Postal and bank wires available, COD. Prepaid cards.

- There's virtually no protection for the consumers. No chargebacks!

- Lose your card and you are liable

- Another popular billing service is Alipay which is like paypal, used on Taobao (China's ebay)

- Yeepay offers online and offline payment services

- Debit cards have passwords which are very sensitive and so debit card payments can only be entered at the banks website.