The Meet Group Releases Q2 2019 Financial Results

31st July 2019 Scott Harvey

The Meet Group, the umbrella to social and dating brands including Skout, Lovoo, Growlr and Tagged, has released its Q2 earnings for 2019.

Total revenue was up 22% year-on-year to $52.0 million, while Adjusted EBITDA rose from $7.6 million to $9.8 million.

Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group, said: “Strong execution in video continued to drive our business growth. We grew revenue 22% from the prior year quarter to a new record high fueled by video revenue growth of 150% over the same period.

“We increased adjusted EBITDA by 29% and we generated $10.2 million in free cash flow – the highest quarterly free cash flow in our history.

“(…) During the quarter we completed the development of several new products including Levels and 1×1 video chat, and we launched those products on our MeetMe app earlier this month.

“We also further strengthened user safety on our platform with the introduction of industry-first safety practices including: prominent abuse reporting; an ongoing safety education pledge; and more stringent content moderation standards.

The firm took a number of steps to protect its users this quarter, with Cook appearing on a content moderation panel discussion alongside executives from Spark Networks and Match Group earlier this month.

Fred Beckley, General Counsel and Executive Vice President of Business Affairs at The Meet Group, has joined the board of directors at the Online Dating Association (ODA) in recent weeks.

The company also announced a collaboration with Yoti, a UK-based firm specialised in digital ID verification.

Cook added: “Looking to the opportunity ahead in video, we continue to execute against our long-term plan to generate $200 million of annualized video revenue by year end 2021. We believe we can grow vDAU share to 25% and beyond by early 2020 on the back of the successful launch of our livestreaming dating game and that we will continue to grow vARPDAU with our recent launch of Levels and VIP badges.

“As such, we expect to aggressively buyback our stock throughout the second half of this year per our recently instituted $30 million share repurchase authorization.”

The Meet Group’s stock has seen a dip in recent weeks, falling from $5.89 on 3rd May 2019 to $3.26 at the time of writing.