NEW DELHI  - Indians hunting for a sweetheart can now dispatch their profiles by mobile telephone to a Web site that promises to generate compatible matches.

A marriage portal seeking to tap India's surging population of 25 million mobile phone users launched a new SMS text messaging service on Wednesday.

Most marriages are arranged either through relatives or newspaper advertisements in the nation of more than one billion people who continue to be traditional in such matters, despite the inroads of modernity in large cities.

And mobile phones are all the rage, with people using them to do business or merely to make a fashion statement. Analysts expect the number of mobile users to reach 100 million by 2005.

"Indians are such heavy users of SMS, so finding a life partner through a mobile was a logical extension," J. Murugavel, chief executive of Web site BharatMatrimony.com, which launched the service, told a conference.

"We've called it 'Fifty-Fifty' because you are one half and are looking for the other half."

Murugavel said he expected a million people to sign up for his service within six months.

But the launch of an MMS or picture message service providing users with glimpses of prospective matches, will have to wait three months more, since few mobiles are set up for it. ($1=45.34 rupees)

NEW DELHI  - Indians hunting for a sweetheart can now dispatch their profiles by mobile telephone to a Web site that promises to generate compatible matches.

A marriage portal seeking to tap India's surging population of 25 million mobile phone users launched a new SMS text messaging service on Wednesday.

Most marriages are arranged either through relatives or newspaper advertisements in the nation of more than one billion people who continue to be traditional in such matters, despite the inroads of modernity in large cities.

And mobile phones are all the rage, with people using them to do business or merely to make a fashion statement. Analysts expect the number of mobile users to reach 100 million by 2005.

"Indians are such heavy users of SMS, so finding a life partner through a mobile was a logical extension," J. Murugavel, chief executive of Web site BharatMatrimony.com, which launched the service, told a conference.

"We've called it 'Fifty-Fifty' because you are one half and are looking for the other half."

Murugavel said he expected a million people to sign up for his service within six months.

But the launch of an MMS or picture message service providing users with glimpses of prospective matches, will have to wait three months more, since few mobiles are set up for it. ($1=45.34 rupees)