If it has somehow escaped your attention: Saturday is St Valentine‘s Day.
For some, love is in the air while others turn to Tinder, the dating app, in the hope of finding a match.
Unsurprisingly, in the four days running up to February 14th, dating apps see a spike in users, as those in the 18 to 25 age bracket hurriedly try to find their Valentine online.
In 2024, Tinder said it recorded a 10 per cent rise in the number of matches against the annual, daily average with 17 per cent more 18 to 25 year-olds using their service in the run up to Valentine’s Day.
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Globally, that represented 30 million additional likes being sent per day – think of the moneymaking opportunity, and it wouldn’t take Cupid’s arrow for you to fall in love.
The main European operating company behind the Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge, Match, OkCupid and Plenty Of Fish, is based in Dublin.
MTCH Technology Services Ltd recorded €367.8 million in revenue in its 2024 financial year, the most recent for which accounts are available. Pretax profits stood at €14 million, even as much of the revenue is generated through charging subsidiaries on a cost-plus markup basis. And that’s for a period in which this entity only began to distribute the application on June 1st 2024.
Wearing your rose-tinted glasses, this looks promising, but the global realities aren’t as endearing.
In its 2025 annual report, Nasdaq-listed Match Group noted that the number of paying subscribers across its apps had declined by 5 per cent from 14.9 million to 14.16 million, while revenue remained largely static.
The company said its products, such as Hinge, have “strong momentum”, but the market isn’t convinced. Data from trading platform IG, shows that Match’s share price was down 77 per cent in the five years to January.
Commenting on the data, IG’s chief market analyst, Chris Beauchamp, noted that many dating apps have seen “declining user participation in Europe and the US” with a “growing trend towards diversification into China”.
Maybe China is where Tinder will find its match.
