Tinder is finding out firsthand that casual flings might not lead to lasting connections. Usership for the dating app has flatlined, according to recent data, while rival Hinge has its growing user base smitten.
Parent company Match Group owns both apps, but the two compete for market share in the online dating world by targeting different user bases with varying relationship goals. Tinder is known as a hookup hotbed, while Hinge bills itself as an app for serious daters and is “designed to be deleted.” And it seems like more singles are ready to settle down. Hinge’s growth has continued to outpace that of Tinder, with its daily active users (DAUs) increasing 17% year-over-year in August, Wells Fargo analysts wrote in a note on Monday. Meanwhile, Tinder saw a 10% decrease in year-over-year DAUs.
Bank of America observed a similar trend, per internet app data published on Tuesday. While Hinge’s year-over-year downloads rose 8% as of August, Tinder’s year-over-year downloads fell 1%. The silver lining for Tinder? Its slow downloads last month could be seen as an improvement for the app, which saw a 10% year-over-year download drop in both June and July.
It’s a key period for the online dating industry, which is no longer riding the pandemic high that saw it balloon in users, Ken Gawrelski, a Wells Fargo analyst who was one of the authors of Monday’s note, told Fortune. Many who downloaded the platforms over Covid to combat loneliness have now left the app, leaving behind a smaller group of more serious users. These platforms are particularly keen to attract Gen Z users, who are largely fed up with apps, and are opting to meet people in person, or don’t feel optimistic enough about finding a partner to pay for apps’ services. For Match Group finding ways to grow its stagnating Tinder base is crucial. While Hinge’s revenue grew 48% year-over-year last quarter, Tinder continues to account for about half of Match’s revenue, bringing in $480 million last quarter alone.
But young people falling out of love with apps doesn't explain why Hinge is thriving while Tinder is struggling to hold on. Gawrelski says the diverging fortunes of the apps come down to how its prospective users view them.
“Tinder has fought with—has been fighting with—a perception problem,” Gawrelski said.
A sport for hookups
For all intents and purposes, Hinge and Tinder are fundamentally the same app: They both are for dating and use a swiping system to find matches. Yet one is perceived considerably worse for finding love than the other.
Tinder has been hurt by its reputation as being a sporting stadium for hook-ups and short-term flings, as opposed to long-term partnerships, which are more appealing to Gen Z. A Wells Fargo survey last fall found that among 500 dating app users, about 85% said they didn’t use Tinder because it was a platform they associated with hookups, but only 28% said they didn’t use Hinge for the same reason. Similarly, over half of respondents said they wouldn’t use Tinder because a friend said they had a bad experience on the app; only 20% said the same of Hinge.
But Match Group partially attributed Tinder’s struggles to subscribers being uninterested in paying extra for a la carte features. Options such as more likes or “Super Boosts” to make profiles available to more users, are unpopular because of slowdowns in consumer discretionary spending, according to the company. In the past few years, Tinder has worked to make those features cheaper and more appealing to younger audiences.
“Tinder is executing with focus and urgency on its strategy of improving ecosystem health and building a better product experience, especially for women and Gen Z,” CEO Bernard Kim and CFO Gary Swidler said in a July letter to shareholders.
Finding a path forward
Tackling the conundrum for the parent company in how it strategizes a path forward will be key, Bank of America analyst Curtis Nagle argued. Match Group is faced with giving its keystone brand a glowup while making sure it doesn’t veer too far into Hinge’s target demographic.
”Tinder will never be the app for the most serious dater,” Nagle said. “They want differentiation.”
Gawrelski believes this differentiation is easier said than done.
“[Match group has] this—by all accounts—wildly successful Tinder community and Tinder dating experience,” he said. “But the struggle is, when you're combating that perception that limits the addressable universe, how do you navigate that? And it's not easy.”
The company announced a deal with OpenAI at the beginning of the year and is introducing AI wingmen to help Gen Z men flirt, though competitors like Bumble and Grindr are developing similar tools. While personalized feedback and advice on how to best design a dating profile may offer a balm to dating app fatigue, it could also detract from a user’s sense of authenticity.
“If we get into the world where AI has generated all of these profiles, and it's not really the true essence of the dater, I think we're going down another difficult road for this industry,” Gawrelski said.
But while the process of differentiating the two apps may be difficult, Tinder stands to benefit from dating app users who usually frequent multiple platforms. Many Tinder users are also Hinge users, CFO Swidler said at a JP Morgan conference in May. While the apps may compete, the successes of one helps inform the direction another can take to gain traction amongst users.
“The most engaged users are using both of those apps, which makes sense because if you're a serious dater and you want to meet people, you're like, let me try both of them and see who I can find,” Swidler said.
Yet some of Tinder’s struggles may also simply be because the brand is reaching maturity, Nagle said, especially compared to the fledgling Hinge, which Match Group bought in 2018. Launched in 2012, Tinder became the prototype of the swipe-able dating apps that, 12 years later, is experiencing increased competition from a swath of others. But that doesn’t mean Tinder is approaching retirement.
“Is it the largest and most mature brand in the industry? Probably,” said Nagle. “But I don't necessarily think it won’t grow.”
