Casual dating smash hit app, Tinder, is coming to emerging markets around the world with a new “lite” offering. A “lite” version of an app is one which uses significantly less data, and offers a bare-bones functionality in exchange. Lite apps, which are used by big names like Google and Spotify, play well with consumers who don’t have access to the kind of high-speed internet connections that are now ubiquitous in the west. Tinder’s finally big enough – and ambitious enough – that it’s developed a lite version in order to try and woo singletons in the developing world.
Match Group’s last quarterly earnings wowed the Street, leaving its share price up 64% year to date!
Source: Yahoo Finance
Tinder is the flagship product from online dating expert Match Group. The company has many successful strings to its cupid’s bow (Match.com, PlentyOfFish, and Hinge, for example) but Tinder is the headline (and profit) grabber. The company doesn’t break out how many people are using Tinder in total, but the metrics it does give us offer a fair estimation of Tinder’s size. In the first quarter of this year, the app averaged 4.7 million paid subscribers.
When’s Tinder Lite coming? “Soon” according to CEO Mandy Ginsberg. On the company’s recent earnings call, Ginsberg explained that Southeast Asia was a promising location for dating apps: internet penetration has risen by 15% in the region over the past five years. She said:
“This area has more than a dozen high-density cities with over a million people, and more young people are moving to large cities. These are really important factors that make the need for our app high. We are excited about the Tinder Lite app that will be coming soon. It’s a big step forward addressing the needs of consumers there. Tinder Lite will be a smaller app to download. It will take less space on your phone, making Tinder more effective, even in more remote areas or regions. And keep in mind, these are regions where data usage still comes at a premium.”
Disclosure
Dominion holds Match Group in its Global Trends Managed Fund. Share price as-at 23 May 2019.
Author: Theo Leworthy
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