Today may be Valentine's Day here in the US, but the dating app market doesn't seem as promising as it used to. As of January of this year, global downloads of dating apps have grown only modestly year-on-year, with 128 million installs, according to new analysis from app intelligence provider data.ai. However, the increase was only 1.9% compared to 29% to reach 128 million installs. An increase seen during the same period last year. Growth has also slowed in the United States, reaching approximately 12.7 million installations as of January 2024, an increase of 2.38% year-on-year, slowing from the approximately 16% increase in January 2023.
While data.ai likes to paint every growth as a positive sign for the industry, there are other signs that the market is losing momentum.
Image credits: data.ai
Match Group, the dating app giant behind Match, Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid, and others, reported a 5% year-over-year decline in its total number of paying customers at the time of its fourth-quarter earnings report in January. Last quarter, the company reported a 6% drop in customers paying for its flagship app, Tinder, which caused the stock to plummet.
Tinder's paying customer growth also slowed again last quarter, dropping 8% year over year to 10 million paying customers, the company said in a letter to shareholders.
Match Group still beat expectations for fourth-quarter earnings and revenue (the latter up 10% year-over-year to $866.23 million), but that's because the company earned more dollars from its shrinking paid user base. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is because we have learned how to squeeze out the. . Case in point: Last fall, Tinder launched an exorbitantly priced $500 monthly subscription called Tinder Select, which promised to match subscribers with the “most popular” profiles until 2022. The idea was borrowed from the company's acquisition of high-end dating app The League. .
In the U.S., one of the largest markets for dating apps, only three in 10 adults have used a dating site or app, Pew Research reported last year. This figure remains the same as in 2019, the company noted.
Meanwhile, one in 10 U.S. adults say they met a partner on a dating app or website, but the widespread success of dating apps in this regard is questionable.
A recent analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data found that a record number of people (one in four) in their 40s are unmarried, up from just 6% in 1980. This likely reflects other factors, such as acceptance of unmarried partners. This includes including cohabitation and same-sex couples in marriage data. Still, considering that 44% of US dating app users say they turned to dating apps to find a long-term partner rather than seeking a more casual relationship, It's not clear that the app is able to do that.
Additionally, Tinder's dominance in the U.S. dating app market appears to be waning ever so slightly, a new report from data.ai shows. As of last month, it had the largest market share of any dating app at 29.3%, down from 29.8% a year ago.
Image credits: data.ai
To date, Tinder has reached 530 million total downloads, the company says on its website, but Match also reported that in the fourth quarter, Tinder's daily new user numbers in the U.S. and worldwide increased from a year ago. It was acknowledged that the decline was in the mid-single digits. In addition to a decline in paying customers.
Meanwhile, according to data.ai, Bumble's share shrank from 17.6% to 14.3% year-on-year, placing it in second place.
The “other” category of dating apps, which includes small businesses and startups experimenting with new models, grew from 27.4% market share in January 2023 to 29.2% in January 2024. This increases the desire for new things among dating app users.
Of course, there is still a chance that things could get better. Going forward, Match will look to AI to improve the dating app experience, including areas such as photo selection, matching features, and post-match guidance, with enhanced features such as AI-powered conversation starters and nudges, he said. Ta.
This follows news that more people are turning to AI tools such as ChatGPT to assist with chats on dating apps. Rizz, an AI dating tool, has gone viral, with downloads increasing in the months following the Washington Post article. For example, Rizz has had over 2.24 million downloads in the past year, according to data from app intelligence provider Appfigures.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether AI will be able to send more people back to dating apps, but it's also likely to prompt more AI-powered romance scams and other malicious activity, security experts say. The company McAfee recently warned.
However, all this does not mean that the market is not ripe for investment. In addition to AI-driven changes, Match has proven that dating apps can still deliver significant profits if monetized properly. Data.ai noted that dating apps generated a record $505 million in January 2024, even though year-over-year revenue growth slowed to 8% from 17% a year earlier.