Mobile

Dating app company Match Group announced it had settled a lawsuit with Google concerning the tech giant’s payment requirements for its Play Store.

Under the terms of the settlement, $40 million currently in escrow will be returned to Match, according to The Verge. Interestingly, Match Group also agreed to Google’s “user choice billing system,” which still allows for Google to get a cut of all transactions, even if Match users pay via Match Group’s payment systems.

Specifically, the settlement notes that by the end of March 2024, Match’s apps will implement the user choice billing system, which means that when dating app members opt to pay using Match’s payment systems, the company will give Google an 11 percent cut of its subscription fees and a 26 percent cut of all purchases. Or for users that go through Google’s in-app purchase system, Match Group will pay Google its standard fees (15 percent and 30 percent, respectively) for transactions.

Match Group announced in its quarterly earnings call that its star app Tinder will be launching a “high-end” subscription tier this fall. In addition, Tinder will debut a product refresh to cater to the Gen Z dating market.

The company has been testing price points in different markets, including a $500 subscription that was called Tinder Vault, according to CPO Mark Van Ryswyk. In an interview with Fast Company earlier this year, he noted that there’s a market for daters who are willing to pay for good matches, as evidenced by the success of its exclusive dating app The League.

However, the price point was arguably high for an app that will not include human matchmakers, but instead will continue to rely on technology to serve up better matches.

A massive leak of 2.3 million dating app records, including personal information from over 260,000 dating app users and 969,571 images and private chats were exposed to the public, according to SC Media.

The data breach included extremely sensitive information, including sexually explicit private photos, recollections of sexual experiences, and details about previous sexual encounters that were tied to dating app user profiles, according to Hack Read, a security news website.

The leak primarily affected users of 419 Dating – Chat & Flirt app, which is based in Hong Kong but has users around the world. Other apps were also compromised, including Meet You – Local Dating App and Speed Dating App for American by MyCircle Network Corp, but these are thought to be linked to the same group of developers as 419 Dating.

The way dating apps are being used is changing, with more people looking for validation, friendship, and online connection rather than dates.

According to a new study by Stanford Medicine, dating apps are now showing similarities to social media platforms: using them for distraction and entertainment as well as searching for love. Among the 1,387 Tinder users (aged 17 to 84) surveyed for the study, half said they weren’t interested in meeting someone from a dating app offline, and nearly two-thirds were already married or described themselves as “in a relationship.”  

Because of the changing motivations, people’s experiences on dating apps vary widely, according to the researchers, and have “a strong influence on their satisfaction with the app,” according to Scope, published by Stanford Medicine.

New research shows that the global dating market is still growing, and is expected to surpass US $12.8 billion by the year 2032. Currently, the market is at US $7.3 billion.

Most of the CAGR (compound annual growth rate) will come from the Asia-Pacific market, where there is the largest young population. In fact, this region has 2 billion active internet users, accounting for 49 percent of the total population. India, Japan and China are seeing the most growth, especially with technology advancements and AI-driven matchmaking and dating services attracting younger users.

However in 2022, North America still brought in the most revenue share at 39 percent, followed by Europe at 25 percent, according to Yahoo! Finance.

Shares of Match Group stock rose following the company’s second quarter forecasts, despite the decline in earnings for Q1.

Match Group reported EPS (earnings per share) of 42 cents, beating the consensus of 41 cents, per Reuters. It’s also a 5 percent increase from the same period last year. Revenue however was $787.12 million for the quarter, below the expected $793.87 million, and a 2 percent decline from the same time last year according to Yahoo! Finance.

Paying app users decreased by 1.1 percent to 15.87 million, according to Yahoo!, but revenue per payer actually increased to $16.26, up from $16 in the last quarter, a hopeful sign.