Finances

It has been reported that China's leading dating site, Jiayuan.com, is getting ready to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market in the first half of 2011. The dating site has hired Price Waterhouse Coopers to audit and prepare the listing. With the IPO they hope to raise about $100 million in US funds.

Jiayuan.com was launched in 2003 and has had about 25 million people register online so far. The company also claims that they are responsible for 4.5 million people getting married.

Data from iResearch.cn indicates that since 2008, Jiayuan.com market share in China has hovered just under the 50 percent mark. In 2009, revenue for Jiayuan.com was 80 million Yuan ($12 million USD). It is estimated that this year the company will have over 100 million Yuan ($15 million USD) in revenue.

For more on the story, read China Knowledge. To find information on other dating sites for Asian singles, check out our Ethnic Dating category.

Spark Networks 2010 3rd quarter financials are in so let's see how they did. Overall revenue is down $1.2 million this quarter to $9.9 million when compared to the same quarter last year. Net income for quarter 3 was $1.2 million. This is up 20% over quarter 3, 2009.

The Jewish Networks revenue was $6.8 million for the 3rd quarter this year. This was 4 percent less when compared to last year. The other Affinity Networks revenue was down 14 percent to $2.7 million and the General Market Networks earned $264,000, a 54 percent decrease over last year.

Average paying subscribers for Spark Networks, as a whole, in the 3rd quarter of 2010 were 158,422. This is a decrease of 4 percent compared to 165,206 for the 3rd quarter of 2009. Subscribers for the Jewish Networks were at 89,792 for the 3rd quarter. This is up 4 percent when compared to the 3rd quarter of last year. The Other Affinity Networks subscribers were down 7 percent to 62,026 and the General Market Networks decrease was 49 percent to 5,888 subscribers.

For the full 2010 Q3 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks Second Quarter 2010 Financials

According to FriendFinder Networks Inc in a press release on Thursday, they have raised $551 million in debt financing. Any further details of this transaction were not disclosed.

For more on the story read the press release and to find out more about one of their dating sites, read our [staticpage: 010000100-FriendFinder FriendFinder review].

The UK dating company Easydate shares rose roughly 13 percent to 102.5p in September on news that profit increased to almost £2m from revenues of £8.8m for the first half of 2010. For the whole of 2009 revenue for the company was £8.5m with profits of just under £1m. Easydate is now valued at £77m. This is £32m more than when it first listed on June 30th of this year.

Easydate currently runs Cupid.com in the United Kingdom and Europe. They now will be taking charge of the US and Canada operations for Cupid.com in a £4.4m deal. This increases Easydate's holding of dating sites in North America to three.

Easydate may also be in a bit of legal trouble. easyGroup has threatened action against Easydate over alleged trademark infringement. easyGroup currently licenses the name "easy" to a number of companies. This includes easyCar, easyHotel and easyJet. easyGroup claims Easydate was trying to use their brand recognition and pass off as one of their own.

To find out more about the dating site mentioned in this story, read our review of Cupid.com.

Spark Networks second quarter financial report was released last week (the quarter ended June 30). Overall revenue for this quarter was $10.3 million with a net income of $0.9 million. When these values are compared to quarter 2 last year, revenue is down by 8 percent and net income is down by 47 percent. Total costs this quarter is $8.6 million which is a decrease of 8 percent when compared to the same time last year of $9.3 million. As a whole the company had 160,239 subscribers. This is a decrease of 2 percent from Q2, 2009.

The Jewish Networks (mostly JDate) revenue for quarter 2 was $6.7 million. This is a decrease of 6 percent when compared to last year. On the upside average paying subscribers was 89,055 which is an 8 percent increase for JDate when compared to the same time in 2009.

The Other Affinity Networks (MingleMatch dating sites) saw revenue reach $2.8 million this quarter. This is down by 16 percent when compared to last year. The average paying subscriber did not fall as hard and was only down 2 percent to 64,083.

Lastly, the General Market Networks revenue is $298,000. This is 57 percent less revenue that they earned, when compared to the same quarter last year. Subscribers fared no better and fell 54 percent to 6,434.

For the full 2010 Q2 release visit Spark Networks News Room.

Related Story: Spark Networks First Quarter 2010 Financials

Early last month we learned that Easydate planned to list on AIM. Well, the company which launched in 2005 and brought us the UK dating site Cupid.com (see [story: Cupid.com-Reviews Cupid Review]), listed 3 days ago on London's junior stock market and raised about £9.8 million. It cost Easydate about £1 million to list and they expect yearly maintenance fees to be around £100,000.

William Dobbie (CEO) held a 49% stake in Easydate while Maxym Polyakov (COO) held 41% when it was privately owned. Now Mr Dobbie and Mr Polyakov will own 32.45% and 27.17% respectively. Shares opened at 60p which gave Easydate a market capitalisation of about £45 million. Currently the stock sits at 68.50p.

In 2009 Easydate earned just over £9.6 million giving them a before tax revenue of £2 million. Sales next year are expected to be double to £19 million. Each month Easydate is adding 200,000 new members. They employ a staff of 140 people with most working on the technical side of the business and online marketing in the Ukraine.

For more on this story, read the Telegraph.