Contributed by: kellyseal on Friday, March 03 2023 @ 09:57 am
Last modified on Friday, March 03 2023 @ 10:05 am
Bumble surprised investors and analysts with its latest earnings report, which showed better-than-expected revenue in the last quarter of 2022. Shares of the company’s stock rose about 2 percent as a result.
According to Seeking Alpha, Wall Street analysts had expected fourth quarter revenue to reach only $235.9 million, but the company reported revenue of $241.6 million, up from $207 million in the same quarter the previous year.
Bumble also reported 3.4 million paying users during the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to 3 million in the same quarter of 2021. Total average revenue per paying user was about $23.01 for the fourth quarter of 2022, compared to 22.68 the year before.
This was big news for the company, especially as its rival app Tinder seems to be declining in both paying users and revenue. According to Reuters, Match Group forecasted lower-than-expected revenue for first quarter of 2023, in part due to poor product execution at Tinder.
In response to the setback, Match Group has streamlined its focus and named a new executive team to correct the trajectory of Tinder, the company’s star app. Match Group has also put more resources and focus on its app Hinge, which has seen incredible growth over the last two years.
According to Seeking Alpha[*1] , Bumble said that for its current quarter (Q1 2023), it expects revenue between $238 and $243 million, indicating steady revenue without any significant growth. Bumble noted that its paying customers in European markets are impacted still by the ongoing war in Ukraine, and all users are impacted by foreign currency movements and inflation. Executives expect the Bumble app to be the main source of company revenue, since Badoo has been severely impacted in its flagship European market. Seeking Alpha reported the company expects a range of $190 million to $193 million of its revenue to come from the Bumble app.
According to Reuters[*2] , Bumble is hopeful for this year, and forecasted revenue growth to be between 16 percent and 19 percent for 2023. The company will also be trying out new paid features, including “virtual gift offering and the ability to add stickers,” according to Reuters.
Bumble launched a new paid feature in 2022 called Compliments, which allowed users to engage with each other via message before actually matching, which has been a hugely popular feature and contributed to Bumble’s good fourth quarter, according to Reuters.
For more on this dating service, check out our Bumble review.