BUSINESS WEEK -- Oct 5 -- Meetic is now Europe's biggest online dating site, with $73.9 million in revenues during the first half of this year, up 48.5% from a year ago. Although it only has 525,000 paying subscribers compared to Match.com's 1.3 million, the online dating market in Europe is expected to double from 2006 to 2011 while the U.S. market will likely grow less than 50%.
The full article was originally published at Business Week, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: I'll be spending a few months in Europe next year and visiting major dating sites and social networks. Prague, Helsinki, Munich, Paris, Cannes, and London are on the itinerary for Q1-Q2, so far. I'm hoping to do some CEO video interviews, and see how continental Europe does internet dating and SNS. The European dating companies definitely seem a little more 'progressive'. Your comments please.
Match is making 75% of its business outside of US, means around 300K subs - Assuming 80% are in Europe , Meetic is more than 2 times bigger than match in EU.
Posted by: Elly Nasser | Oct 09, 2007 at 07:06 AM
European companies will always do better in Europe than US companies - it's simply a culture thing. As has been said many times, Match promises love, Meetic promises a date.
A country-specific dating site will always have an advantage over a continent-specific site. A region site has advantages over a country site. And a town site over a region.
At idate I spoke about developing niches. We're set up to work with local partners who know their territory, their niche and how to market to their people. It's much better to work with partners who know their market than try to tackle new markets head-on.
I think european companies are concentrating more on paid memberships and active members than total membership as well. There's no benefit having millions of members if only a fraction of them earn you money.
It's great to see these stories hitting general press like Business Week.
Posted by: Ross Williams | Oct 09, 2007 at 08:00 AM