Tinder continues to dominate the online dating scene, thanks to its 1.4 million paying users. Tinder is projected to bring in close to $800 million by the end of 2018.
The dating app is owned by Match Group, which owns other dating apps as well including Ok Cupid, PlentyOfFish and Hinge. Financial experts had expected Match to reach $437 million in revenue, but by the end of the third quarter, it had $444 million in revenue.
This equals to a 29 percent increase from last year. Match considers the company will generate around $1.72 billion in annual revenue. But Wall Street isn’t happy with Match’s fourth-quarter earnings. It expected the company to earn $454.5 million, but Match expects to earn between $440 and $450 million in revenue in Q4.
Match’s shares dipped by 10 percent as well due to after-hours trading schemes.
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So it will fall short of Wall Street’s expectations, but not by much. Tinder’s revenue is up by 60 percent after a year. Match’s breadwinner seems to be Tinder, and rightly so. Tinder has been around the block for ages it seems.
The app revolutionized online dating by formulating a simple idea that changed how people interact with each other. The simple idea of swiping right if you both like each other judging by their profile made hooking up as easy as pie.
The location-based dating app made up approximately half of Match Group ’s estimated total annual revenue. Tinder also made up for nearly half of Match’s total paid users. Match had a total of 8.1 million users in Q3.
This was up from 7.7 million users in the second quarter. This meant a total overall year over year increase of 23 percent. This is because of Tinder’s premium service called Tinder Gold.
The premium service allows users to like somone’s profile without having to swipe right. This removes the pressure of swiping right just for the sake of it. It encourages users to choose carefully who they actually think might be a good match for them.
In just three months, Tinder’s premium users increased from 3.8 million in Q2 to 4.1million in Q3. This increase will bring in Tinder, and as a result, Match around $800 million by the end of this year. Match recently bought Hinge, another dating app.
Match reports that Hinge is doing pretty well under its leadership. This is backed by the fact that Hinge has seen a five-fold increase in the app’s downloads.
Match, it seems is trying to buy every dating app on the market to create a monopoly of sorts. It tried to buy Bumble as well, on several occasions. Since Bumble is in direct competition with Tinder, it outright refused the deal.
Bumble also filed a $400 million lawsuit against Match, stating the conglomerate stole Bumble’s trade secrets. Bumble later dropped the suit. It remains to be seen how well Bumble fares against Tinder when its parent company IAC releases its financial report tomorrow.
Dr. Hafsa Akbar Ali
Muhammad Abdullah
