Match Group Releases Q4 Results & 2024 Roadmap

Match Group has shared its recent financial results and future plans in its Letter to Shareholders for the fourth quarter of 2023. It highlighted the AI features it is currently testing, as well as other product innovations on the way.

Released yesterday, the letter states that the company’s overall revenue grew 10% compared to the same period last year. This includes an 11% increase to Tinder’s direct revenue and a 50% increase to Hinge’s direct revenue, compared with Q4 2022.

The letter shares some of the results, plans, product roadmaps for Match Group:

AI Innovation

Match Group shared how AI can support its mission to make dating more efficient and to bring new people onto dating apps. There are 3 key area this can be done:

1. The pre-match experience: Match Group shared that AI can help with profile onboarding. Tinder is testing an AI system that can identify and suggest higher quality photos. The company is also looking at generative AI to support users as they write authentic bios and prompts.
2. Matching users: With its ability to analyse data and provide personalised experiences, AI can help users to discover compatible people. “We expect our apps to provide AI-driven expert advice, highlight users’ shared interests, and offer practical tools to enhance the matching experience”, it shared.
3. The post-match experience: Once two users have matched, Match Group highlights that AI can suggest conversation starters, suggest relevant date ideas, and prompt users who are not interacting enough with a match.

“We believe this next wave of innovation represents a powerful opportunity for Match Group that will enable us to materially increase user satisfaction and growth. We expect to roll out many of these AI-driven features in our apps over the course of 2024”, the letter shared.

Tinder

Tinder’s direct revenue grew to $493 million in Q4 2024, “driven by ongoing momentum from weekly subscription packages and pricing optimizations”, Match Group shared. While its paying users saw a small decline, changes to its pricing model leave Tinder with an improved revenue-per-person heading into 2024.

Beyond its financial results, Match Group highlights that Tinder saw new profile and discovery features added in late 2023, reflecting “the way the newest generation of daters connect” and “marking the first step in Tinder’s broader product evolution”.

The dating app also saw the appointment of its new CEO, Faye Iosotaluno. Looking ahead, the Tinder team “will focus on evolving the product to better satisfy women and the next generation of daters”, with Iosotaluno set to provide an update on Tinder’s progress later in 2024.

Looking ahead, Tinder looks to appeal more to Gen Z by delivering an experience with “lower pressure” and more authenticity. This could involve “new discovery gestures” and an Explore page, giving users alternative ways to meet new people.

When it comes to AI, Tinder will first look to incorporate the technology to enhance the onboarding and photo selection process, with adoption in matching & conversation guidance coming later in 2024.

The letter outlines another key next step for Tinder: ‘winning with women’. Alongside new trust & safety features which will deliver realness & authenticity, the platform will serve female users by delivering more relevant matches. The success criteria / measure for this goal will be the number of women sending messages on the app, it shared.

Hinge

Hinge saw an impressive 50% growth in revenue compared with Q4 2022, reflecting the platform’s development in English-speaking and European regions, Match Group shared.

Reflecting on 2023 as a whole, Hinge recorded over 15 million downloads, a 40% from the year prior. This upward trend has been reflected in early 2024, with daily average downloads reaching all-time highs.

On a product level, Hinge’s ‘Great Dates’ metric is providing the platform with “a treasure trove of leverageable data on what leads to successful dating outcomes”. Using these insights, Hinge plans to use AI to produce a more personalised experience to get users on dates more efficiently.

Match Group Asia

Businesses within Match Group Asia are seeing strong growth. For example, Japanese dating platform Pairs is seeing improved user registrations after advertising & product updates. 

Looking ahead, Pairs will see further growth as Match Group plans to advertise the platform’s unique features using publicly trusted TV channels. It will also work with local governments to help address the country’s poor marriage rates, as well as expand beyond its matrimonial focus in order to also serve users who are simply seeking serious relationships.

Social discovery & livestreaming apps Hakuna and Azar both saw financial improvements compared with the same period last year. In 2024, Azar will look to enter the U.S. market and expand across Europe.

Hakuna, which saw a shift in 2024 to focus on “live streaming with flirty content”, will continue on this path, with upcoming trials in Korea and Japan. “We believe that products like 1:1 video chat and live-streaming can help expand our total addressable market by bringing in users who aren’t single and / or not primarily interested in dating”, Match Group shared.

Evergreen & Emerging

Match Group’s ‘Evergreen & Emerging’ portfolio includes apps such as Match, Meetic, Plenty of Fish, OkCupid, The League, BLK and Chispa. The Evergreen portion saw a 10% year-over-year decrease in revenue in Q4 2023, due to a reduction in marketing efforts and a greater focus on operational efficiency. 

Its emerging brands however saw a direct revenue increase by 30% year-over-year in late 2023. Among these exciting emerging brands is Archer, which looks to continue its expansion across the U.S.

Capital Allocation 

As a whole, Match Group plans to deliver greater shareholder value by returning at least 50% of its free cash flow to shareholders through share buybacks and other means, it shared. The company is currently not looking at acquisitions in the near term, preferring to focus on growth and operations. 

Keeping to this strategy, the company’s Board of Directors approved a new share repurchase authorisation of $1 billion, in place of its current authorisation.

Read Match Group’s full Q4 2023 Letter to Shareholders here.