- Search form
- Dating in a Digital World: How Love Has Become a Billion Dollar Business
- Want to trade FX?
- Of Love and Money: The Rise of the Online Dating Industry
- Valentines Day How Online Dating Became a $2 Billion Industry. | The Fiscal Times
Search form
That acquisition is reflective of Match's overall strategy, Kelley says, of buying out competitors before they reach meaningful scale that could potentially eat into Match's user base. Even Facebook, which recently announced a foray into dating , shouldn't be a concern. After all, it's not a winner-take-all market in Kelley's view. This is especially true as Match's international subscribers become closer to a majority.
Dating in a Digital World: How Love Has Become a Billion Dollar Business
By , Nomura estimates just under half of the user base will be outside the US. The field is already crowded, with almost 3, companies running dating sites, according to a report last fall from business research firm IBISWorld. The report projects the industry to add about a hundred companies per year over the next four years.
That means making a dent as a new player will be harder than ever since many will have to build a database of users from scratch, says IBISWorld analyst Jeremy Edwards. To survive, they'll need a novel marketing strategy and a focus on untapped potential daters — sites targeting niche markets have higher rates of membership growth, according to the report.
Want to trade FX?
The biggest web dating companies have a huge lead over the competition — two control more than 40 percent of the market. The stats are staggering.
- SHARE THIS POST!
- free nigerian mobile dating site.
- Of Love and Money: The Rise of the Online Dating Industry - media-aid.com.
- restaurant dating coworkers;
Of 19, couples married between and , more than a third met through an online dating site, according to a study in last May's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Last December, more than 1 in 10 American adults visited dating sites, spending more than an hour a day there on average, according to Market research company Nielsen.
Of Love and Money: The Rise of the Online Dating Industry
Changing demographics are a big part of what's inflating the industry. In , just 28 percent of American adults were single; today, the share is 47 percent, according to the Census Bureau.
- dating agencies birmingham.
- Choose the subscription that is right for you.
- MOST POPULAR.
- Other options.
- Related Stocks.
That means an expanding target market, and it doesn't include the unknown number of married people trolling the sites. Plus, more people are getting online all the time — 70 percent American adults had broadband access as of last May, up from 42 percent in As ever more people meet on the web, they're also peeling away the stigma once associated with it.
In a poll last October by the Pew Research Center , just 21 percent of Internet users agreed with the statement "people who use online dating sites are desperate," an eight point drop from the last poll in Disapproval has gotten especially rare among somethings , who grew up with web dating as the norm, says eHarmony spokesman Grant Langston.
At the core of most companies' growth plans is expanding mobile use. Online daters now spend more time on dating apps than they do on the sites themselves.
Valentines Day How Online Dating Became a $2 Billion Industry. | The Fiscal Times
And by , more than 80 percent of the population will own a smartphone up from 46 percent in , according to IBISWorld. Langston says that for eHarmony, that's meant users are checking in more often — six to 12 times a day instead of two or three.
Offering geo-dating apps, which allow smartphone users to locate potential dates nearby — has become almost a prerequisite for keeping up in mobile.