Yahoo Finance Dating app user growth is slowing: eMarketer
Americans are swiping left on dating apps.
Growth among smartphone users is still going up, but dating app audiences have been growing slower than expected in recent years, according to research firm eMarketer.
“At this point, we see existing users switching between apps rather than new users trying dating apps for the first time,” said eMarketer forecasting analyst Nazmul Islam.
Data compiled by the firm suggests that 25.1 million adults in the U.S. will use a dating app on their smartphones at least monthly in 2019. That’s a down from last year’s estimate of 25.4 million users.
Indeed, Coffee Meets Bagel co-founder and co-CEO Dawoon Kang reiterated these findings in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance.
“When my sisters and I started this company, we started with a big vision. We wanted to change the way singles experience dating. Dating feels really hard, and if you ask anyone, online dating, particularly, is such an exhausting, disappointing, almost jaded experience. And a few years later, it still is. So we actually haven’t solved the problem that we set out to solve,” said Kang.
Dating apps getting the most love
Among millennials, Tinder is the most popular service, followed by Bumble and PlentyofFish. That’s according to a recent Google study. In fact, eMarketer found that 21% of single adults in the U.S. will use a dating app this year, with that figure expected to barely reach 23% by 2023.
But among Wall Street analysts who cover Tinder’s parent company Match (MTCH), most have a “hold” rating on the stock. The 12-month consensus target price on shares is $69.06.
For the year, shares of Match Group are up nearly 65% as of Wednesday’s market close.
Pamela Granda is a producer on Yahoo Finance’s closing bell show, The Final Round. Follow her on Twitter.
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