Statistics

To continue on our story about how 542 eHarmony Members Marry Every Day we dug up some more interesting statistics. Some of these fun facts are from the new Harris Interactive study while others were released by eHarmony to help celebrate their 10 year anniversary.

• By April of last year there had been over 400 million conversations on eHarmony since launch.
• By August of 2009 eHarmony had 30 million members register and had 30 million pictures uploaded.
• 43.99% of newlyweds who met through an online dating service were matched by eHarmony.
• 25.75% of newlyweds who met online (Social Network, Dating Site, etc...) where matched by eHarmony.
• It is estimated that currently there are 1,130,006 non-married, monogamous relationships started by eHarmony.

eHarmony also found that offline, Americans met their spouses 15% of the time through work and another 15% of the time through friends. The chances of meeting your spouse at school is only 9% and through your family only just over 4%. Bars and clubs came in at 5.4%.

To find out more about this popular online matchmaking service, check out our review of eHarmony.com.

From an article over at Madison.com about seniors and how popular online dating is with this demographic, they talked briefly about Match.com. In the piece, Match.com's public relations coordinator, Jaklin Kaden, stated that over 6 percent of Match members are 60 years old or older. For Match members 50 or more, this statistic jumps to 22 percent.

To find out more about this dating service, read our review of Match.com.

eHarmony commissioned a new marriage metrics study from Harris Interactive in 2009. They have released the statistics from the study this week in part to celebrate their 10 year anniversary. The last Harris Interactive study done for eHarmony was in 2007 (see Story); it concluded that 236 eHarmony users get married every day. This was based on data from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007. So, it has been about 3 years since this statistics has been updated. Let's see what Harris Interactive found out.

What they found was that the number of marriages per day resulting from eHarmony has doubled. On average, 542 people are married every day in the United States because of meeting online at eHarmony. Wow, this means there will be another 271 happy couples who married today, thanks to using the dating site eHarmony. This new data came from an online study from Harris Interactive which they ran during July and August of 2009. 7,994 people responded to this study, aged from 20 to 54 and who were married between Jan 1, 2008 and June 30, 2009. If you calculate it out, during this 18 month period, 148,311 eHarmony couples got married. This equals to 4.77 percent of all new marriages in the United States.

For more on this story you can read the 2009 summary of the eHarmony Marriage Metrics Study. For more about this dating site and how it matches members together, read our popular eHarmony review.

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

Almost 2 months ago Zoosk reported that their Facebook Fan page had over 1 million fans. I checked today and they currently have 1,612,923 Facebook Fans. Here is a YouTube video that Zoosk put together to mark the milestone.

That certainly is a large number of fans and the increase of 600 thousand fans in under 2 months is an achievement itself (that is roughly 10,000 Facebook Fans a day). This is by far the largest number of Fans any dating site has on Facebook. Two other popular online dating sites only have about 6,000 each.

For more information on this popular dating site, read our review of Zoosk.com.

Religious singles who are looking for love are turning to niche online dating sites for help in their searches. According to a recent article in The Denver Post, these singles are looking for someone to marry who shares their faith and values.

Dating website CatholicMatch.com boasts 150,000 active members and is the largest online dating pool of single Catholics. Its founder Brian Barcaro explains, "I think because of the high divorce rate and number of broken families, there is a resurgence in people looking carefully at what makes a successful marriage. They are turning back to their faith."

Barcaro says the website tries to serve a broad spectrum of Catholics, but it does include important religious questions such as mass attendance and adherence to church teachings on issues like contraception and premarital sex.

Some subscribers such as Erin McCabe, who has been on the site for four years, say that their faith and religious life have been enhanced since joining.

Barcaro was a law student looking to meet people when he launched the dating website back in 2003. Its tagline, "Grow in faith, Fall in love" is the reason Catholic singles find this option so appealing.

As Christina Newman states, before she married a man she met through CatholicMatch.com, "I was having a really hard time finding a young Catholic man who was willing to go to Mass with me and practice the faith." Also, many of her friends had divorced, and Newman wanted more reassurance her union would last.

Religious dating sites seem to fill a void for those who are looking for commitment and shared values. Turning to faith provides them more opportunities in finding love.

For more information on this dating service, read our review of CatholicMatch.com.