Launched in Japan in 2004 and now boasting about 840,000 members, Match.com began targeting the mature market after seeing the fastest growth in membership among the over-50 set, an age group once thought over the hill when it came to romance.

Although nearly half of Match.com members in Japan are aged 30-39, another 9 percent are aged 50 and over.

"It used to be considered that people aged 50 and over didn't talk about love. People would say, 'No way, you're too old'," said Match.com Japan President Katsuki Kuwano.

"These days, it's become acceptable for people in that age group to talk about marriage and love."

Cultural change 

The growth of Japan's greying population is partly behind such changing views.

Already one in five Japanese are aged 65 or older and the percentage is expected to double by mid-century.

Older Japanese have become more at ease with the Internet, while the numbers of people who have never married or who divorce, often after decades of marriage, is on the rise.

"With an increase in the divorce rate and more and more people accepting second marriages, the marriage demographics have definitely changed," said James Farrer, a sociology professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.

"I think there is a cultural change in the way these things are talked about in the media," he added, "there is a sense that older people are sexual, and it's legitimate to talk about it."