Match Group

The value for dating app Bumble’s stock has dropped 14 percent after the company lowered revenue forecasts for the fourth quarter, and Gen Z users have increasingly stopped renewing their subscriptions.

Bumble expects Q4 revenue to be between $232 million and $237 million according to Reuters. This is lower than Wall Street projections of $254.5 million, according to Refinitiv data. Still, the company pointed out that paying users for the third quarter increased to 3.3 million from 2.9 million last year, a sign of growth despite the downturn.

According to Motley Fool, on a call with investors, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd said that the economic slowdown affected spending for “certain segments of its user base,” notably younger daters, who were not renewing subscriptions at the normal rate. Motley Fool also noted that shares had already fallen 38 percent this year as investors fled dating and tech stocks in general, following a surge of interest and rising subscriptions in dating apps during pandemic lockdowns.

Dating app conglomerate Match Group reported third quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations, with more of its users paying for subscriptions on dating app Tinder. The company’s stock rose 16 percent in response.

Despite the effects of inflation and a slow first half of the year, along with poor execution of some new features and executive team changes made by new CEO Bernard Kim, Match Group turned things around and impressed investors and analysts with better-than-expected revenue gains. Match Group revenue reached $810 million for the quarter ending September 30th, beating analysts’ estimate of $793 million according to Refinitiv data.

Tinder’s revenue grew 6 percent and its paying users jumped 7 percent according to Reuters. Tinder users account for the vast majority of Match Group’s estimated 100 million active users.

Dating app Hinge announced that users can now add their astrological signs - as well as what kind of pet they have - to their dating app profiles.

Hinge is adding popular features that offer more insight into potential matches, and many singles want to know if their stars align. Astrological signs figure prominently into dating today, with dating apps noticing a surge of interest starting in 2020.

According to The Verge, the new astrology feature lets users add their main “sun” sign to their profiles, along with age and other important information. And while some zodiac-focused singles may only be interested in compatibility with certain signs, for the majority of singles, it provides a way to strike up conversation.

Dating app Hinge announced that it will be rolling out a video verification feature to combat fake accounts and scammers, a problem for dating apps in general.

“Selfie Verification” prompts Hinge users to upload a video of themselves, and the app will confirm that the person in the video matches the photos posted to their profile. When the profile is verified, they receive a “Verified” badge. Selfie verification isn’t required, but if users want the badge they have to complete the process.

Hinge told Wired that the verification process is a combination of machine learning and human oversight that will “compare facial geometries from the video selfie to photos on the user’s profile.”

Dating app Plenty of Fish had a brand refresh on Monday, October 17th. The logo has been updated along with the design of their website and apps. The last brand update happened in September of 2019. The new look goes even more modern with less colors and minimalistic styling. Instead of blues and almost a florescent pink of the old look, the makeover contains several shades of pastel pinks along with black and white. The new design also incorporates some animation touches. For example, on the POF homepage the fish drawings actually move around.

It also looks like they have reverted back to calling the service by its full name "Plenty of Fish" again, instead of using the shorter version "POF". This reverses the original name switch which happened back in 2019.

With monthly downloads of the POF app falling since the last refresh, it looks like POF is hoping the new look (which is designed to appeal to younger adults) and a few other new features will hopefully turn things around.

Match Group has joined Epic Games in expanding their lawsuit against Google and its Play Store, claiming the company paid developers to prevent Play Store competition.

According to a report by Engadget, the companies filed a motion with a federal court in the Northern District of California in October, accusing Google of paying off developers that had the financing and ability to create new Android app stores to compete with Google.

As Tech Crunch pointed out, this would be “a direct violation of U.S. antitrust law known as the Sherman Act,” the amended lawsuit states.

In the original lawsuit, Epic Games and Match Group detailed a program called “Project Hug” that paid game developers hundreds of millions of dollars to keep their games on the Google Play store, notably following the release of Epic Games’ Fortnight in 2018 (where it was made available outside of Google Play, bypassing their fees).