Match Group Beat All Expectations With Q1 Results, With 1m Now Paying For Tinder

Shares of The Match Group rose yesterday after the dating giant beat revenue expectations and revealed how many singles are actually paying for Tinder.

In its Q1 2016 financial results, The Match Group announced its revenue had risen by 21%, led by a 24% increase in its dating revenue.

It posted revenue of $285.3m for Q1 of 2016, up from $235.1m the year before.

This beat the highest analyst expectations of $285m.

The strong growth was thanks to a 36% increase in its average paid member count, which was driven by its acquisition of PlentyOfFish and the growth of Tinder’s paid service.

The dating giant now has over 5.1m paying members.

This growth was bolstered by a massive 58% increase in international paid members – numbers rising from 1.17m in 2015 to 1.86m in 2016.

In its investor presentation, the dating business said much of this international growth had come from strong paid membership growth at Tinder.

The Match Group revealed that there are now 1m people around the world paying for Tinder’s premium service, Tinder Plus.

The IAC spin-off also said it expected the number of paying Tinder members to double by the end of the year.

Speaking about the results, Match Group CEO & Chairman Greg Blatt said: “Match Group posted very strong revenue and Adjusted EBITDA growth in the first quarter, driven by exceptional growth at Tinder, solid performance of Meetic and Match, and the PlentyOfFish acquisition.

“We expect solid year over year performance throughout the balance of 2016.”

It’s an impressive set of results from The Match Group – one showing the importance of Tinder to its portfolio now that the revenue-generating side of the app is in full flow.

With its IPO filing last year, The Match Group said the app has approximately 9.6m daily active users, with each user spending an average of 35 minutes on the app.

While this daily active user number is undoubtedly much higher now, 1m paid members is a very solid return for Tinder, and one that the company clearly thinks will keep rising – especially as Tinder pushes its presence in important markets like India.

Elsewhere in its results, the company’s adjusted EBITDA nearly doubled compared to the previous year, hitting $64.6m.

Revenue from the company’s non-dating businesses, such as Princeton Review and Tutor.com, however, was flat at $24.9m.

And the company was rewarded for a strong first set of financial results for 2016, with shares jumping over 7% to $11.98 yesterday.

Check out the full results here.