Contributed by: kellyseal on Monday, December 11 2023 @ 10:11 am
Last modified on Monday, December 11 2023 @ 10:15 am
Grindr has become the most popular dating app in the U.K. among singles aged 54 and older, according to a recent study from Ofcom, the country’s communications regulator.
According to The Pink News, Tinder was still the most-downloaded dating app in the UK, with 2.5 million users, followed by Bumble at 1.7 million U.K. users. Grindr has grown in 2023, but it still captures only about 1.9 percent of the U.K. adult population, or 924,000 users. But as far as time spent on the apps per user, Grindr wins hands-down.
In fact, the average user of the gay dating app spent seven hours on it in May of 2023, according to Ofcom, compared to only one hour on Tinder, and a bit more than two hours for each Bumble and Hinge.
And older daters seem to be gravitating to Grindr more than any other age category. The study found that daters 54 and older were those spending the most time swiping and DMing on the app, according to Pink News[*1] .
Ofcom’s research “sets out an overview of the U.K. online landscape in 2023, exploring children’s and adults’ use of online services,” according to the published report.
Among younger daters, it’s a different story – Hinge captures the majority of 18-24 year-old U.K. users at 28 percent, followed by Tinder at 24 percent. Grindr accounted for 14 percent of this age category.
It’s a bit more competitive for 25 to 34 year-old dating app users. Forty-five percent of Hinge users fall into this age category and 43 percent of Bumble’s users do. Tinder and Grindr are tied – this age group makes up 37 percent each of their user bases.
Grindr has grown in the U.K. over the past year, expanding its reach from 790,000 users in May 2022 to 924,000 in May 2023.
The study comes as Grindr is facing internal conflict in the management of the company. Employees are positioned to vote on whether to officially unionize before the end of the year. In September, Grindr lost 80 percent of its workforce after ending remote working options for employees and mandating them back to the office (located in a few select cities). The Communications Workers of America claimed it was retaliatory for the move to unionize. The timing of the mandate was shortly after employees voted to move forward with organizing a union.
The gay dating app continues to grow revenue and subscribers regardless. It went public the end of last year, and has since seen its shares increase in value with recent earnings reports.