IAC Q1 Letter Focuses on Facebook Dating

IAC, parent company of Match Group, has released its earnings report for Q1 2018. Revenue came it at around $1 billion, up 31% year-on-year.

At Match Group, total revenue was up 36% to $407 million year-on-year. the number of Tinder Average Subscribers was 3.5 million, up 1.6 million year-on-year and 368,000 sequentially.

Vimeo increased its number of subscribers 13% year-on-year to 901,000, and organic gross bookings growth rose to 29% year-on-year.

ANGI Homeservices revenue rose 69% to $255.3 million, attributable to the combination with Angie’s List in September. Excluding the Angie’s List data, operating income was $13.7 million and Adjusted EBITDA was $42.0 million for ANGI.

The letter to shareholders from CEO Joey Levin expands on the IAC response to Facebook’s announcement that it will enter dating. It reads:

“We respect the power of Facebook’s network – as consumers and partners we have been great beneficiaries of their mission to connect the world. However, on the long list of things we worry about in our dating business, this announcement doesn’t top the list. We have a 23-year head start and several months advanced warning, and we’re going to take advantage of all of it (…)

“A single new competitor, even a powerful one, cannot just uproot us – our fate is in our own hands. No matter what our competitors may do, or large internet platforms may announce, we have tens of millions of people all over the world who visit our brands every month to find like-minded people with the express purpose of finding a relationship. We have 1,400 talented, driven employees who spend all day every day trying to figure out how we can get better at helping our customers find successful relationships. And we have passion for the cause (…)

“Tinder released a genie from the bottle and neither Facebook’s launch of a new profile page for single people nor anything else is going to put that genie back in.”

Levin previously said Facebook Dating would be “great for U.S./Russia relationships.”

Match Group stock has recovered slightly since the 20% drop, and yesterday saw a volume spike of 11.34 million shares (61,074 trades). The stock averages a daily volume of 3.11 million shares.

Find the IAC earnings here.