PR NEWSWIRE - Hello Group's (formerly MOMO) Q3 revenues decreased by 0.2% YOY RMB3,759.2 million ($583M). Net income decreased to RMB403.2M ($62.6M) from RMB456.7M. Monthly Active Users on Momo app were 115.5M in September 2021, compared to 113.6M last year. Total paying users of live video service and value-added service, including 2.9M paying users of Tantan, were 12.2M, compared to 13.1M, which included 4.1M paying users of Tantan. "The Q3 of 2021 was a good quarter with solid financial results," commented Li Wang, CEO of Hello Group. "For the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, core Momo revenue has achieved YOY growth. Although we still have many hard work to do at Tantan, I am glad that we are finally on track to make concrete progress on the product fronts."
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Hello Group Q3 Results
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ForeverX - Dating App for Medical Professionals
TECHNICAL.LY - A sibling duo based in Philly and North Carolina built the app to help healthcare workers find meaningful romantic connections amid the pandemic. Its name, ForeverX, is a cheeky call to a medicine prescription, while making it clear the focus is on finding serious romantic relationships, the founders said. It launched to users last month, and is currently free to use, though there are paid and premium features coming down the line. The app uses a medical professional's national provider identifier number to verify their identity.
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Hinge Cracked Getting Audio to Go Viral
THE VERGE - Last month, the dating app Hinge debuted voice prompts to daters' profiles. Instead of telling potential matches about themselves with text, they could do so with their voice. Each clip can be 30 seconds, and, at launch, Hinge said two out of three daters it polled thought voice would help them "better determine their chemistry" with someone. The prompts have gone viral on TikTok and Twitter, with people reposting them either because they're funny, cringe-worthy, or something in between. Hinge says 13% of new daters on the app build their profile with a voice prompt and that 46% of people on the app have listened to at least one voice prompt.
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Match Group's Shares Down 17%
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Investors are dumping Match amid ongoing litigation risk. Match's shares are down ~17% since the trial began in November. Investors are overestimating the risks. A litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence recently predicted Match has a 75% chance of winning the case. A 2017 report from Barclays showed Tinder did $176M in revenue in 2016 and, as of the Q1 of 2017, had less than a fifth of the payers it has today. No one predicted how much money Tinder Gold would make. According to Barclays Tinder's management predicted $454M in revenue in 2018 and Rad $503M. Barclays landed in the middle at $485M, significantly below the $800M the app actually ended up generating that year. Rad predicted 2020 revenue to be $892M. Last year, the app made $1.4B for Match. The banks ultimately valued Tinder at $3B in 2017, while the plaintiffs argue it should have been worth $13B.The case is set to go to a jury in early December. For Match, the worst case scenario seems unlikely. The judge has already said valuations of dating companies today can't be taken into account.
by Laura Forman
See full article at Wall Street Journal
Mark Brooks: Match Group didn't just buy Tinder. They bought Singlesnet, and OKCupid, and People Media, not to mention POF, to hit the home run with Tinder. Sam Yagan, Mandy Ginsberg, Amarnath Thombre and Shar Dubey, executed beautifully to allow Tinder to disrupt the market. (Full Disclosure: POF is a former client of Courtland Brooks, and I own Match Group stock)
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Bumble & Match Pursuing Metaverse Ambitions
THE MOTLEY FOOL - Bumble plans to relaunch BFF as a metaverse platform. Plans are vague. (Bumble stock declined ~40% the past month, trading ~20% below its IPO price of $43/share. Bumble beat top line estimates but missed profit estimates and lost paid users). CEO, Whitney Wolfe Herd said BFF was already "built on blockchain tech," and that it was designed to encourage users to create their own communities. BFF is to enable members to "own their experience on Bumble" via the "communities they build, the virtual goods and experiences they acquire, or through new ways of owning their identity as they navigate the metaverse." In August, 10% of users were using BFF and Bumble had 12.3m MAUs in September. Match also mentioned metaverse on its latest conference call and has been testing out a new feature called "Singletown" across college campuses in Seoul, which enables its users to communicate with each other through digital avatars in a virtual piano bar. CEO Shar Dubey said it was seeing "encouraging early signals" for Gen Z engagement.
by Leo Sun
See full article at The Motley Fool
Mark Brooks: Want to learn more about Metaverse? The next LTR online conference is covering an intro to Metaverse, courtesy of David Siegel. See ltr13.splashthat.com.
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BlueCity Q3 Results
GLOBE NEWSWIRE - BlueCity's total revenues reached RMB270M ($41.9M), up 9.3% YOY. Net loss was RMB73.8M ($11.5M), compared with net loss of RMB137.8M in Q3 2020. Monthly active users of BlueCity's apps reached 7.5M, up 19.3% YOY. Total paying users of BlueCity's apps reached 776K, up 57.1% compared with 494K in Q3 2020. Revenues from live streaming services reached RMB194.2M ($30.1M), down 23.9% YOY. The decrease was primarily due to the decrease in the average spending per paying user for live streaming services as a result of the headwinds in the talent show live streaming industry in China. Revenues from membership services reached RMB35.1M ($5.4M), up 93.1% YOY.
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Bumble Investors Should Be More Thankful
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Bumble may never have the broad appeal of Match Group but it is looking more lovable. Since going public in February, its share price has dropped 54% from where it opened on its first day of trading. Over just the last three months, it is down 36%, while Match’s share price has fallen less than 2%. But according to Q3, Bumble ARPU was ~$23, growing 18.5% YOY. Bumble's worldwide download grew 20% YOY. Bumble reported Q3 revenue for its namesake app grew 39% YOY, suggesting more people who are downloading the app are opting to pay for it.
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Love at First Kick Show by Lovoo and Jochen Schweizer
LINKEDIN - Sat.1 has announced a new program called "Love at First Kick - The Lovoo and Jochen Schweizer Extreme Dating Show", which starts on December 8th. In the show, three singles meet their LOVOO matches on action-packed adventure dates.
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Frolo Dating Helps Connect Single Parents
MYLONDON - Zoe Desmond wanted to connect with other single parents to arrange play dates and days out, and to ask for advice and support. But she was disappointed to find there wasn't really a solid online community where she could meet other single parents in her area. The solution was Frolo, an app Zoe created which allows single parents to connect with one another both digitally and in the real world through chats, meetups and access to support and guidance, and two years later Frolo is set to extend into dating. Frolo Community now has ~30K registered users in the UK and Ireland. Frolo Dating, a new subsection of the app, is set to launch in January, for single parents looking for love.
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Spark Networks ADRs Higher After Osmium Partners Increase Stake
DOW JONES NEWSWIRE - The American depositary receipts of online dating service Spark Networks are trading 18.9% higher at $3.18, after Osmium Partners said it bought 1.6M shares of the company's stock (at $2.51 each), raising its stake to ~5M shares.
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Dating App Feeld Announces Minimum Salary of $80K for All Employees
PR NEWSWIRE - Feeld, the dating app with ~20 sexuality and gender options, announces all employees across the globe will be receiving a minimum salary of $80K (£60K) from January 2022. The new salary announcement, which will impact close to 40% of Feeld's full time staff, comes as the leadership team continues to be as transparent and accountable as possible whilst challenging the industry benchmarks.
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Match CEO's 'Fist Bump' Sparks Tinder Trial 'Bullying' Claim
BLOOMBERG LAW - Sean Rad says Greg Blatt 'crossed the line' with arm grab. The way Match Group Chairman and CEO Greg Blatt tells it, he hadn't seen Tinder founder Sean Rad in years and, even though they were now on opposite sides of a multibillion-dollar trial, he wanted to say hello. The judge declined to allow Rad's lawyers to question Blatt about the encounter in front of jury, but he warned Blatt not to make further contact with the plaintiffs or their lawyers. The exchange is illustrative of the combative nature of the trial, which just entered its third week and is expected to continue through Dec. 3. On the stand Monday, Blatt denied trying to steer the $3B valuation, which he said was similar to the amount Wall Street analysts had estimated. Rad claims Tinder was actually worth $13B at the time.
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SeniorMatch Launches Senior Companion Service to Offer Assistance to Isolated Seniors
PR NEWSWIRE - Launched in 2001, SeniorMatch is a senior dating site for people over 50 to find love and meet new friends. This month, they have launched the Senior Companion Service wherein seniors can ask for help for different tasks or even seek friendship. As per the survey of SeniorMatch, 29% of the members 60+ tend to live alone and 35% often find themselves to be lonely. 5% of all members reported to have no immediate family to belong to.
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Announcing LTR Edition 13 - Product Placement Strategy & Metaverse
OPW - Love, Technology, Relationships (LTR) is on Wed 1st December starting midday EST (New York) and for this monthly online event we have two topic experts speaking on Product Placement Strategy, and on Metaverse. We have a half hour of networking on virtual tables, then 50 minutes conference time then another short networking session with your peers, leaders of dating and online social communities. 1.5 hours all-in.
If you hold a full time leadership role at an Internet dating company then you are welcome to join IDEA for free, and welcome to join LTR events for free. See the LTR speakers and invite page here. Email [email protected] to RSVP.
LTR is kindly sponsored by RealMe, vPaaS by Meet Group, FaceTec and Courtland Brooks
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