Aims to Connect 100 Million Women Online
Healofy has created a vernacular social network exclusively for Indian women to feel informed, safe and empowered, allowing them to consume, connect, and transact in a trusted space.
The number of smartphone users in India is estimated to grow from 451 million to 859 million by 2022. Every 9 out of 10 new smartphone users actively seek content in regional languages, with the need being especially higher for women who form 42 percent of Indian Internet consumers. However, the actual presence of women on significant digital content and social platforms is a meagre 10 percent of the total users on these platforms. Per the latest Google report, Research with the Next Billion Users, April 2019, Indian women show reluctance to network online due to the challenges of finding relevant content, for fear of harassment, and the lack of safe and purpose-driven communities.
Healofy, India’s Largest Women Social Network, seeks to address this hugely under-served space for married women on the Internet by offering them a strong and safe environment of trust. With 3 million downloads, and 500,000 Daily Active Users (DAUs), and an additional 1.5 million monthly website users, the regional-language and community-focused mobile app connects millions of women across different stages of life – from getting married, to becoming mothers, and life beyond that.
Catering to married women across Tier 2, 3 & 4 cities in their mother-tongue, Healofy offers credible and relatable content on various topics of women’s interests in 9 languages – English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Today, more than 65% of users on the app are regional language users. And after Hindi, the top regional languages with the most active user bases are Marathi, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil. Healofy also ensures that the content is culturally and regionally contextual, for maximum relatability with its users. The content available ranges from timely updates including daily Tips and Horoscopes, to information with a strong desi context, such as Dadima Ke Nuskhe (Grandmother’s Remedies), and a highly active Q&A section on which more than 18,000 questions and answers are posted every day. Content is available in various formats (Q&As, images, videos and live videos) that are relevant to women on the basis of their life-stage, language and interest areas.
Women can also chat in the language of their choice in personalized groups with other like-minded women on the basis of location as well. Even though current smartphones don’t support typing in Indian languages easily, Healofy has disrupted and smoothened the traditional peer-to-peer interaction experience by introducing a chat transliteration feature which allows any user to feed words in the regional language of their choice using English characters which the app converts into the corresponding regional script in real time.
Women spend about 5 million minutes on the Healofy app every day. With a growing sense of trust and confidence in Healofy, women are building stronger communities with active discussions on multiple topics like pregnancy, parenting, fashion, food, fitness, lifestyle, and learning different skill sets etc.. This helps them leverage their skills and talents ensuring they become key opinion leaders (KOLs) on the platform.
In their offline lives, Indian women make purchase decisions in an extremely social manner, influenced by their connections and trusted peer groups. They are the primary decision makers for all household purchases and are estimated to spend around $200 billion annually offline on household goods by 2025. On the contrary, only 5% of all Indian women Internet users transact online.
Healofy’s approach is to mirror the offline experience of networking and ‘shopping together’ in the online world, to help more women transact online, and ultimately monetize via network e-commerce and enable Indian women attain financial independence.