As the cost of living increases, people spend less on everything from food shopping to streaming videos, but many still need to be ready to cut back on the dating.
The owner of Tinder says that between July and September, the number of paid subscriptions to the dating app went up by 7% around the world.
Match Group, which owns Hinge and OkCupid, said that total sales for the quarter went up to $810 million (£704 million).
But it warned that the slowdown in the world economy was beginning to hurt.
In particular, it said that a weaker economy is hurting brands like Plenty of Fish that cater to people with less money. In addition, on its platforms, people buy fewer things inside apps.
Tinder is one of the most famous dating and meetup sites in the world. In the quarter leading up to September, sales and the number of users grew.
The company, which has a free version of its service, said that the return of a feature that lets people swipe right and left on their desktops had helped.
Competition, revenue and growth
When you look at Match as a whole, there are about 100 million active users, most of whom use Tinder.
But Tinder users were spending less on one-time features like “Super Likes” and “Boosts” that make your profile more visible. This was true even though Tinder subscriptions were up.
Match also thinks Tinder’s sales won’t grow in the last three months of the year.
Match says that hundreds of millions of people have used its apps. And had 16.5 million paying customers worldwide in the last quarter for all of its brands.
That was up from 16.3 million in the three months before July. But most of the growth came from places other than its main markets in the US and Europe, where sales were down slightly.
Tinder has had a rough time, and its management has undergone several changes. Its CEO Renate Nyborg left in August after less than a year on the job.
Match said it was still looking for a new CEO for the app. It also said that it was focusing on making Tinder better for women after abusive interactions on the service brought the app into question.
Several tech giants have been worried about a global economic slowdown, which is why Match’s results are coming out now.
Apple and Amazon said last week that their sales are down because people are spending less.
Both said that the rising cost of living made it harder for people to buy things.
Also, shares of Meta, which owns Facebook, fell more than 20% last week after the tech giant reported terrible news.
Shares of Match, which have been doing poorly this year, went up 16% on Tuesday after the company’s results.
COVID changed the way Tinder users use the app
Tinder’s CEO has said that the “swipe left, swipe right” method of finding matches is no longer enough for singles who are used to lockdown dating.
Jim Lanzone told the BBC that people used to match to meet in real life. But that changed when virtual dating became the norm in lockdowns.
Now, dating app is making profiles more “holistic” so that people can learn more about each other online.
Tinder’s data shows that, compared to before the pandemic, the average number of messages sent per day is up 19%, and conversations are 32% longer.
The company says that half of Gen Z users have gone on dates through video chat. And a third of those couples did more virtual activities together.
Even with the new changes, users can still swipe right on someone else’s profile if they like how it looks.
