Match Group

Jason Hill was in for a surprise when he attended a meetup of OkCupid users in 2009. Sam Yagan, co-founder of OkCupid and current CEO of Match.com, dropped by the gathering and spoke to Hill. When Hill told him he joined the site in March 2004, Yagan was shocked.

“That was less than a month after we started,” Yagan exclaimed. “You must be our longest user!”

Fusion recently spoke with Hill about his status as OkCupid’s longest continual user, and the lessons he learned along the way. His story offers key insights into the world of online dating:

Tinder, one of the world’s largest dating platforms, has been available to users as young as thirteen since the app launched almost four years ago. Tinder’s practice of letting teens use its app has been an anomaly in the industry, and one that hasn’t gotten as much attention as its reputation for quick hook-ups. But as of this month, the company has raised its minimum user age requirement up to eighteen.

This leaves many people asking: Tinder, what took you so long?

Online dating has been the subject of both opportunity and scorn in recent years. It's been a great way for people in different social circles to meet and expand their networks, but it has also posed a security risk, mostly due to a small percentage of users misleading other online daters by setting up fake profiles. Understandably, this has caused concern among parents whose teenagers have been using the popular dating app to find others to meet.

Tinder’s age verification is tied to Facebook, and the app has only let users who are younger than 18 see other users who are between the ages of 13-17. This would be fine in theory, but in practice it’s another story. This works only if the underage user has also set up a Facebook account with an accurate profile in which they reveal their real age. However, there is room for abuse if someone sets up a fake profile on Facebook, claiming to be eighteen or older, in order to continue using the app while underage.

Also understandably, this poses a problem for Tinder users who are reaching out to other users who they believe are age appropriate, only to find they are still teenagers. So while the restrictions are a move in a positive direction, it’s not a foolproof protection against fake profiles and catfishing.

All of the other popular online dating sites, including Match, eHarmony, and POF (Plenty of Fish) have had restrictions in place from the beginning when it comes to the ages of their users, and they all have a minimum requirement of eighteen. POF takes it one step further – if you are a female between 18-21, no guys over 30 years old can message or contact you over the service.

Tinder is attempting to make its platform a little more user-friendly, female-friendly, and age appropriate. It is also aiming to make daters of all sexual and gender identities feel more welcome. Recently, the company announced its plans to include transgender identification in profiles along with preferences.

So why did Tinder allow younger daters to use its app? Like all online dating services, it’s about the numbers. But since Tinder has a popular brand and large database of users now, it’s time they put the restrictions in place.

For more on this dating app, chck our our review of TInder.

Match Group released first quarter 2016 financial results on May 3. The company went public last November, and in its first earnings announcement as a publicly-traded company, Match Group fell short of earnings estimates by 5.3%. This time around, things are looking up.

Match Group reported sharply higher sales and profits in Q1 2016. Last quarter, the company’s dating revenues rose 14%, driven by a 30% increase in paid members. With that momentum, Match Group continued to perform well. Highlights of the quarter include:

• Total revenue rose 21% year over year to $285 million
• Dating revenue grew 24%, led by strong contributions from Tinder and PlentyOfFish
• Adjusted EBITDA nearly doubled over the prior year to $64.6 million
• Average PMC (paid member count) grew 36% to 5.1 million
• Tinder surpassed 1 million PMC as of the end of the quarter and successfully launched its first à la carte paid feature
• Operating income was up 8%, reflecting the strong Adjusted EBITDA growth
• Adjusted Net Income increased 30% as a result of the increase in Adjusted EBITDA
• Cash Flow nearly doubled to $68.5 million, while operating cash flow increased 88% to $75.0 million

Leading the charge is Tinder. “Tinder is really killing it. The numbers are great,” said Chairman and CEO Greg Blatt in an earnings call. “We're spending a lot of time improving the core product experience, experimenting with new product experiences, and yet continuing to rollout modernization initiatives, each of which has basically exceeded our expectations at the time of rolling it out.”

Along with its successes, the quarter saw Match Group slip in a few areas. Average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) declined 10% to $0.54, mostly due to the growth of relatively low-cost services such as Tinder, as well as the continued shift to mobile platforms. Non-dating revenue was flat at $25 million as a result of lower SAT test preparation course volume at The Princeton Review.

Looking forward, Match Group management expects second quarter dating revenue to grow by between 4% and 5% compared to Q1, with EBITDA margin percentage in the low to mid-30s. For the full year, the company predicts total dating revenue between $1.1 billion and $1.14 billion and overall adjusted EBITDA between $410 million and $425 million.

"Match Group posted very strong revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth in the first quarter, driven by exceptional growth at Tinder, solid performance of Meetic and Match, and the PlentyOfFish acquisition," Blatt said in a press release. "We expect solid year over year performance throughout the balance of 2016."

The Match Group list of dating services which we have reviewed include Match, OkCupid, Tinder, and Plenty of Fish.

Last year’s infamous Ashley Madison hack revealed a statistic that seemed to confirm what many already feared about online dating. The site’s database included over 31 million male users and just 5.5 million female users. Of those profiles, only a small percentage were real and active: around 20 million men and 2,500 women.

You don’t need to be a mathematician to know those numbers are bad.

The vast majority of Ashley Madison’s female users were inactive or, worse, not real to begin with. Since then, singles have become even more skeptical of the veracity of women’s profiles on dating sites. SurveyMonkey Intelligence recently put those suspicions to the test by studying which dating apps have the highest proportion of women.

The bottom of the bunch is no surprise: Grindr, an app geared towards gay and bisexual men. Some of the entries farther up on the list are equally unsurprising. Coffee Meets Bagel and Bumble, both female-friendly apps, scored relatively high. Tinder and PlentyOfFish found themselves in the middle of the pack, despite having more users than any of the other apps tested.

But the number one spot is where things get interesting. Topping the list, with a userbase that’s 58.6% female, is Christian Mingle. Christian Mingle, Coffee Meets Bagel, and eHarmony are the only apps that have a majority of female users. Who would have guessed that a niche, faith-focused dating app would rank so highly?

SurveyMonkey Intelligence also found that men and women use dating apps differently. Looking at what percentage of users engage with an app on a daily basis, the results are almost flipped. Grindr is the clear leader, with 70.3% of users engaged each day. Christian Mingle and eHarmony bring up the rear with 33.7% and 28.7%, respectively.

It could be that men are generally more engaged daters than women or, as SurveyMonkey Intelligence speculates, it could down to Grindr’s demographic. Because the app is geared towards a targeted market, Grindr users may stick to one app while other demographics spread their efforts among multiple services.

SurveyMonkey Intelligence tested a variety of other factors (read the full report here) and closed with a few tips. “Straight men may want to check out Coffee Meets Bagel, while straight women can confidently choose between a number of apps where the gender ratio is favorable,” the report advises.

It’s also important to take your dating style into account. If you’re the spontaneous type who wants dating to be part of your daily life, SurveyMonkey suggests trying your luck with the highly-engaged users of Happn. If, on the other hand, you take a more relaxed approach, the more infrequent users of Coffee Meets Bagel could be more your speed.

According to a recent article in Bloomberg News, Tinder expects its paid subscriber base will double by the end of the year.

The Tinder app is free to use, but about 1 million users are currently paying for its tiered service, which provides special features, such as the ability to “super-like” a profile. Super-like allows you to let the person know you think they are extra special, instead of just swiping right as usual. Other paid features include “Rewind” where users can return to a previous profile they swiped left on, or rejected, for the opportunity to choose differently.

Tinder announced recently that it will launch a new social feature to its app to connect groups of friends who share common interests. There is no news on whether that will be part of its free platform or a new paid feature, too.

Gary Swidler, chief financial officer of Tinder's parent company, Match Group Inc., described efforts to monetize the dating app as being "ahead of schedule."

Subscribers aren’t Tinder’s only source of income. The company originally started drawing revenue from ad sales.

Tinder’s huge database of more than 9 million daily users and its well-known brand, especially among the coveted Millennial age group, makes the app a great advertising vehicle for many companies looking to expand their brand awareness. Users of the service spend roughly 35 minutes per day on the app and swipe left or right 140 times, according to company executives. This means a captive audience, which is also appealing to marketers.

While Tinder will continue to sell advertising over its platform (one of the drawbacks of using the free app), they will also push forward with gaining more subscribers and developing more paid features. Tinder garnered criticism last year for charging more money to users over 30, but the company has not since changed its pricing policy.

Because of the growth in Tinder’s revenue, the management team told Bloomberg they feel confident in adding new features to the service and “taking some swings,” in terms of taking chances with the features. The company admitted it hasn’t made any significant changes to the app since adding the “Super-like” feature last November, though recently they were testing the social feature which links you through your Facebook friends to other friend groups and garnered criticism for its lack of privacy. (Users could see their Facebook friends’ Tinder profiles without their knowledge.)

Tinder is owned by Match Group, which also owns popular dating platforms Match, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish.

There has been speculation that Match Group’s star performer in the online dating space – dating app Tinder – would cannibalize its other online dating companies. But so far, contrary to analysts’ reports, this hasn’t happened.

Tinder is by far the dating app industry giant, with over 25 million active users and about 1 million paid subscribers in its tiered program. Some analysts have feared that because of Tinder’s rapid growth and free platform, it would mean users would leave other popular online dating sites in Match Group (like Match, Plenty of Fish and OkCupid) to join Tinder, making them obsolete.

What they found instead was that Match Group’s overall earnings were up in the first quarter of 2016, thanks in part to the POF acquisition and Match Group’s strategy to grow and invest in Tinder’s rivals.

Overall revenue came in at $285 million in its first quarter, $3 million over expected revenues.

Greg Blatt, chairman and CEO of Match Group, said in the first quarter earnings release: "Match Group posted very strong revenue and Adjusted EBITDA growth in the first quarter, driven by exceptional growth at Tinder, solid performance of Meetic and Match, and the PlentyOfFish acquisition."

Bank of America Merrill Lynch explained that "even without Tinder, Match would have grown its core Dating subscribers by 6% (up from about 1% last quarter) and its Dating revenue by significantly more."

The POF acquisition is an important factor in the revenue numbers. The dating website grew tremendously itself over the years with 70 million registered users, and operated for many years on a shoestring budget with one employee, Markus Frind, who created the dating site and sold it to IAC (Match Group’s parent company) for $575 million in 2015.

Over time if Tinder’s popularity continues to grow, and the app itself makes improvements that resonate with its users, then there could be an impact to Match Group’s other businesses. For now, POF, Match, and OkCupid are still going strong.

One solution that has been floated in the media is for Tinder to advertise other Match Group properties on its app. (Tinder’s revenue comes mainly from paid advertising, rather than its tiered service.)

For the most part, online daters are not beholden to one site or app, preferring to join two or more at any given time. Because of Tinder’s growth, it has grown the entire online dating industry in just three short years, and made online dating a more acceptable practice. Numerous dating apps are launching every week, hoping to cash in on Tinder’s market share and success.

It seems to be a win-win for the online dating industry as a whole, even in a saturated market.