Even as the dream of Hot Vax Summer and Shot Girl Summer were cruelly dashed by Delta Variant, people were still on the look for love — and other things — last year. As ever, hope springs eternal.
In fact, the pandemic may have driven people to dating apps. When you can't meet people in bars, through public gatherings, or any of the other ways people traditionally meet, finding new ways to connect becomes even more important.
Dating apps make a whole lot of sense in a world where people still want to find love, whether it be the forever or the more fleeting kind. You can meet a new person and talk virtually before making a plan to meet in the real world.
So, it turns out that once-in-a-century virus maybe made more people willing to try swiping right as Match Group, owners of the popular dating apps Tinder, Match.Com, OkCupid and Plenty of Fish just reported record use in 2021.
Love in The Time Of COVID-19.
On March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and the worldwide lockdown kicked in.
But you can’t lock down people’s hearts, as people looking for companionship online quickly adjusted, with singles were looking to, as the saying went, “catch feelings, not Covid.”
For a while, bragging that you’d stocked up toilet paper and hand sanitizer was a common dating app flex.
People were urged to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary, and while many married couples were content to start a rewatch of “The Sopranos,” singles began using dating apps more than ever, with many people finally giving it a try after years of resisting.
“Tinder recorded its highest number of swipes on a single day: Three billion. From March to May 2020, OkCupid saw a 700% increase in dates. And over on Bumble (BMBL), video calls increased by 70%,” reported Fortune.
In its fourth-quarter earnings call, Match Group reported total revenue growth of 17% over the prior year to $2.4 billion, and Tinder’s Direct Revenue was $1.4 billion in 2020, an 18% increase in year-over-year.
But while online dating didn’t slow down, at all, during the first year of the pandemic, it certainly did change.
Socially distanced zoom-powered video dates became all the rage, and in July of 2020, Tinder (IAC) introduced a video chat in the app to some users and rolled it out broadly in October.
Vaccines Bring A Major App Boost, Even As Variants Spread
As vaccines started rolling out in the spring of 2021, we began hearing rumors that the summer would be one for the books, a time for pent-up singles to begin making up for lost time.
That kind of happened, sorta.
The spread of the ultra-contagious delta variant dashed a lot of people’s hopes, as many were still just not ready to meet that person they’d been chatting with at a bar for an IRL conversation.
“The rise of the delta variant is putting the kibosh on partying in traditional summer hot spots, like Fire Island, the Hamptons, Provincetown, Mass., and New York City,” the New York Times reported.
But apparently plenty of others were willing to swipe right and try to make something work, as Match reported in its fourth quarter earnings call that it was the company’s best year ever.
Tinder was the most downloaded dating app, and accounted for $1.35 billion in consumer spending, up 35% from the prior year. The amount of people who signed up for Tinder’s paid service (which can cost up to $119.99 annually) and includes premium services like “Unlimited Likes," increased to 9.6 million, up from 3.7 million in 2018
Match Group’s owns a lot of dating apps, including Tinder, Match, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, Pairs, PlentyOfFish and OurTime.
It found success with plenty of them last year, as they collectively grew direct revenue 26% year-over-year. Hinge, which bills itself as being oriented towards long-term relationships, more than doubled its revenue to $197 million.
But while Match Group has a lock on the dating app game, there are other options out there including including Bumble and Badoo. App analytics firm App Annie found that last year consumer spending on dating apps hit $4.2 billion, “up 30% from the previous year.”
Why Are Dating Apps Gaining Popularity?
So what’s behind the app boost? Well, there are the obvious factors such as pent-up demand and the pandemic pushing more people online than ever before.
But plenty of companies that saw a pandemic-related boom are now seeing their dominance start to wane, as Netflix (NFLX) might have hit a subscription ceiling and Peloton (PTON) has seen its stock prices dip rapidly as demand for its connected-fitness products have fallen.
So will dating apps see a similar dip this year, especially as the omicron variant subsides and America seem determined to get back to normal as possible? Or did the pandemic finally convince America that trying to meet a person at the bar or through the church is just too old school?
It’s too early to say, but just as any marriage counselor will tell a couple they’ve got to change it up to make things interesting, Tinder has introduced a few new features in order to keep the spark alive … and, it hopes, to keep their customers coming back.
As App Annie notes, the company is making an effort to be less of a device where people meet and then hang out offline. Instead, it hopes that initiatives such as an increased emphasis on virtual hangout spaces and community-wide live events such as Swipe Nights and quizzes will keep customers hooked.
Match Group also has plans to bring dating into the virtual reality realm. The company has even developed a “metaverse-like experience called Single Town, where users interact using real-time audio and meet each other in virtual spaces. Single Town is currently being tested on college campuses in South Korea.”
Nothing gets people in the mood like strapping on a VR headset, apparently?
But if Match Group really wants to keep people coming back, it needs to listen to the women of social media and do something to cut back on all dudes holding fish in their profile pic. Enough is enough here, fellas.
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