Unrest in the British online dating industry: Although the number of monthly users over the last two years has increased 13 percent to a total of 7.1 million users, revenue has decreased a total of 9,800,00 GBP in the same period. As the current market report by leadingdatingsites.co.uk shows, a migration to new social dating providers is posing an obstacle for smaller websites.
New user groups: The number of online dating users in Great Britain has never been higher. The influx is mainly due to the new set of social dating players in the market. For the first time, providers like BADOO have captured the under 20 demographic thanks to their casual ‘Meet new people’ approach: “Traditionally, this demographic was rarely active on online dating websites”, explains Henning Wiechers of the UK’s LeadingDatingSites.
Declining industry revenue: Despite the increase of new users, total revenue has been decreasing for the past two years. The weak monetization of users is mostly due to improved consumer protection regulations. However, this is not a reason for providers to worry: At 2.60 GBP of sales per user, the dating industry in the UK is still in leader when compared to other European countries.
Need to establish: Although social dating websites have made considerable inroads and captured 30 percent of all users, websites focusing on online personals and adult dating are still the market leaders in terms of revenue. Wiechers: “TINDER, SCOUT & Co have to present a mature business model and prove that they can establish themselves for the long term. ”
The complete study can be downloaded here:
http://www.leadingdatingsites.co.uk/media.htm
