Contributed by: kellyseal on Friday, May 24 2024 @ 02:14 pm
Last modified on Friday, May 24 2024 @ 02:55 pm
Dating app Tinder continues to lose paying subscribers according to Match Group’s latest earnings report. Match Group’s overall revenue for Q1 has been impacted by Tinder’s ongoing struggles, but it continues to hold strong in the dating app market overall.
According to Fast Company, Match Group said that Tinder’s paying user base for the first quarter fell 9 percent from the same quarter last year. The company’s CEO Bernard Kim remained optimistic, saying that they expect to slow user declines in the second half of the year.
However, Match Group’s revenue is up, with net income at $123.2 million for the first quarter of 2024 compared to $120.8 million this time last year, according to Marketwatch[*1] . Revenue rose 9 percent for the company to $859.6 million, compared to $787.1 million the same time last year. (Match Group revenue also beat overall analyst expectations of $855.8 million.)
Match Group owns several popular dating apps including Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, and BLK among others.
And while paying users declined 6 percent overall from the previous year, revenue per payer increased 16 percent during the same time period, according to Marketwatch.
Tinder has focused in recent quarters on expanding its roster of paid premium features in an effort to get more people paying for the dating app, rather than relying on subscriptions. The company has taken popular features like “Super Likes” and put them behind a paywall as well, which has frustrated some users.
However, Fast Company[*2] noted that a la carte revenue, or revenue generated from paid premium features rather than subscriptions, comprise only 20 percent of Tinder’s direct revenue. In addition, Tinder’s subscription revenue grew 17 percent over this time last year, but a la carte revenue fell 13 percent in the same time period.
CEO Bernard Kim also introduced a “four-pronged strategy” in the company’s earnings report, aimed to help Tinder grow its paying userbase, according to Fast Company. These include “redefining dating for the next generation; win with women; improve monetization optimization and localization and build a widely loved brand.”
There were no specific details given on these new strategies.
“Tinder is executing with focus and urgency on its strategy of improving ecosystem health and building a better product experience, especially for women and Gen Z,” CEO Bernard Kim and CFO Gary Swidler said in a joint letter to investors. “While these initiatives are having mixed short-term impacts on Tinder’s metrics, we firmly believe that these are the right things to do for the long-term health and success of the business.”