Hinge

One of Germany’s most prominent banks, DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale, has reduced its shares of Match Group by 4.7 percent.

According to BestStocks.com, DekaBank now owns 178,837 shares which amounts to about $7.2 million, compared to the previous quarter in 2022 where it held 187,697 shares worth $11 million.

Match Group’s stock price fell 10.45 percent between March and April according to Investing.com, and has fallen 54.78 percent overall in the last year. In addition, a Goldman Sachs analyst has now adjusted its price target for Match Group stock, lowering it to $58, down from $65 earlier in the year. It still suggests the company’s stock is a buy, according to Market Screener.

Match Group is listed as a “moderate buy” among analysts according to Bloomberg.com, but several shareholders have now filed class-action lawsuits against the company for not being forthcoming about the problems with Tinder’s product rollouts. Tinder brings in the lion’s share of revenue for the company, and for the first time, the app saw a decline in Q4 2022.

A new strategy that’s gaining steam among organizers is using dating apps to reach out to potential voters ahead of crucial U.S. elections.

According to The Guardian, encouraging young voters on dating apps to go to the polls on April 4th was an important strategy in the race in Wisconsin for a State Supreme Court seat, where youth votes ensured a victory for a Democrat-backed justice in the face of increasing rollbacks of rights regarding abortion and education.

In a report from Vanderbilt University in 2020, researchers found that 31 percent of millennial respondents were using online dating services even more than before the pandemic, and an even larger percentage of Gen Z singles were turning to dating apps to meet people. At the same time, they are increasingly resistant to phone calls and texts from organizers and campaign staff, especially as they get bombarded around election time. Dating apps are a way to casually engage their commitment.

India is now among the fastest-growing dating app markets worldwide, thanks to a growing young population of singles and their changing attitudes towards dating.

In terms of year-over-year growth, India emerged as the fifth largest market in dating app spending in 2022, according to a new study by data.ai Intelligence. Researchers found that Indian users spent $31 million more in 2022 than they did in 2021 despite economic factors like inflation that affect consumer spending.

Match Group, Bumble, and other major dating app companies have made a big investment in India, hoping to capitalize on this attractive market which now brings in millions of dollars in revenue each year to dating app companies.

Dating app Hinge has launched its new top tier service HingeX for $49.99 per month. The company also announced changes to its current subscription tiers to provide more offerings at new price points.

Hinge had been testing its new premium service at different price points around $60, parent company Match Group revealed on an earnings call in January, as well as revising the current subscription model. Executives and investors have seen huge growth potential in the dating app and are focusing efforts right now on Hinge and star app Tinder.

Match Group had said that it was testing the new subscription model, but few details about features were given. Now we know that subscribers who pay for HingeX will have their profiles constantly boosted to attract more matches, according to Fast Company who broke the news, and will be seen sooner than other profiles by potential matches.

Match Group is expected to lay off up to 200 employees, or about 8 percent of its workforce (currently around 2400 employees before the cut) after sharing a disappointing outlook for the first half of 2023 in its latest earnings call.

According to Reuters, the company blamed “significant” poor product execution at Tinder, in addition to dealing with a tough economy and a strong dollar. CEO Bernard Kim brought in a new management team and is in the process of rebranding Match Group’s star app.

The layoffs were primarily in recruiting, with CFO Gary Swidler noting that the company is restricting its hiring to Hinge and other growth businesses, with notable cuts to Tinder staff.

Match Group has named new key executives, including its first CTO and a new President and CFO, as well as a new focus on four key businesses – Tinder, Hinge, Asia and Evergreen & Emerging.

According to the company’s press release, Gary Swindler was named to the top position of Match Group as President and CFO, and Will Wu joins as chief technology officer, a newly created position, to oversee product innovation across all apps. Swindler was promoted from his position as CFO and COO and Wu joins from Snap Inc., where he oversaw the commercialization of Snap’s developer platforms and spearheaded the creation of its most famous features like “Discover” and the “Chat” messaging feature, as well as Snap’s social gaming feature. 

Match Group is betting big on Wu, who brings an impressive background with developing one of the earliest revenue streams for Snap, as well as developing Snap’s primary social engagement driver.