Contributed by: kellyseal on Monday, August 03 2020 @ 11:12 am
Last modified on Monday, August 03 2020 @ 11:34 am
Dating app eHarmony announced it has seen an 85% increase in registrations on its UK platform since the coronavirus lockdowns began earlier this year. The increase accounted for new registrations from January – June of this year, compared with the same time period last year.
April and May were especially active, up 50 percent and 48 percent respectively compared to 2019. Interestingly, at the beginning of lockdown in March, there was an 11 percent drop in registration which quickly bounced back.
As lockdowns have eased in the past couple of months, new registrations for eHarmony have continued to increase. In June, the company saw a 77% year-on-year increase.
Dating apps have widely reported an increase in user activity the last few months, including Tinder who reported its highest day of activity ever on its platform in late March, where users swiped over 3 billion times. Some dating apps have rushed to add in-app video features, as virtual dating is becoming increasingly popular.
eHarmony was among them. The company says that the success of its Video Date feature has been driving the increase in registrations, as well as user activity on the app. Video Date was launched on the platform in April, allowing users to video chat within the app (instead of sharing phone numbers or going to third party apps). eHarmony reports that it helped increase communication over its app by 33%, with an average call length of over one hour.
Plenty of Fish also added video chats and a livestream feature called NextDate where its users can participate in virtual speed dating and also virtual blind dates. The Meet Group - which rolled out this feature in POF’s app as well as its own suite of dating apps – reported that NextDate has been played over 100,000 times per day.
While it seems that some online daters are meeting in person now that restrictions have lifted, in part thanks to features offered by other dating apps like the "In-Person Meetup" badge from Curius[*1] . Many are still active on dating apps and prefer to virtually date, at least until they find someone they are ready to meet in person. Because of the pandemic, virtual dating has become the new default to screening potential matches.
With this in mind, eHarmony developed a new ad campaign focused on the isolation experienced by singles during the pandemic and promoting its Video Date feature as a response.
eHarmony’s International Marketing VP Romain Bertrand said in a statement[*2] : “With a rise in both registrations and messages onsite it’s clear that people have been craving a deeper connection during social distancing. This consumer insight drives our decision making and we think this trend will continue as singles use video dates as a bridge to meeting face-to-face – particularly as we cautiously lift restrictions on normal life.”