In its latest earnings report, Match Group acknowledged growing pains for its dating app Tinder, where the paid user base shrank for the sixth quarter in a row. That’s a stark contrast with Hinge (also owned by Match), where Q1 revenue grew 50% year-over-year, to $124 million.
To be clear, Tinder remains hugely popular, with 50 million monthly active users, and it still has more paying users (10 million) than Hinge (1.4 million). But on the business side, one app — “the dating app that’s designed to be deleted” — seems to be on the rise, while the other is struggling to figure things out.
It may be that customers are more willing to pay for the hope of finding true love than they are for hookups. Tinder offers à la carte in-app purchases for features such as Super Likes and See Who Likes You, but revenue for these purchases was down 18% — a trend that Match Group CFO Gary Swidler said has become “more severe of late.”
Tinder has also been adding safety features like the ability to Share My Date with friends. It’s not clear whether these additions, or the promise of additional à la carte purchase options, will turn things around.
Anyway, hit play on the video, then let me know what you think in the comments.
