What happened and why With a Bumble IPO on the horizon, even Match Group's rivals can enjoy their success and the inevitable industry valuation boost. Despite the long hot summer, people preferred to play a safe dating game as Tinder and Hinge drove record sales for umbrella business, Match (+5.85%). Thumbs have been working overtime in lockdown and with love hitting the e-waves, dollar bills are hitting Match's bank account with sales jumping +18% in the third quarter of 2020. Jump, in the name of love... Paying subscriber numbers jumped +12% to hit 11 million as more people pay for the privilege.More than a spark... Match's leading light, Tinder, saw sales swell +15% thanks to their virtual hop-in events like Swipe Night that are gaining traction with community. Tinder continues to be the headline attraction for investors when it comes to the Match portfolio (half the groups revenues) but some of the supporting acts are fast winning over customers with a different angle on love... Growth is on a Hinge... Sales trebled at fast-growing Hinge and downloads doubled compared to this time last year.Match made in heaven... Since Match swooped for Hinge last year, the deep-pockets of Match has helped to rejuvenated the app. Investors may be concerned that Hinge will eat into Tinder's dating dominance, and cannibalising growth in the process. While eyeballs can only be in one app at a time, the markets look broadly different. 😉 Tinder, the fling builder... Built for short-term relationships, and targets 18-24-year-olds. Meanwhile, Hinge is 'designed to be deleted' and targets a slightly older millennial generation looking for something a little more serious. No doubt there is plenty of switching between platforms depending on the moment, but there doesn't appear to be direct competition. Door wide open... Hinge may be the rising star of Match's hallway's but the latest step from the Tinder team has taken things to the next level of the relationship. In a world lived on web cam, Tinder spies an opportunity. The dating app icon is rolling out one-to-one video calling for its users and creating a new '1st base' in the dating game: video call. While rival Bumble already allows video calling, Match's free "Face to Face" feature will only be enabled if both people want it, and if only one clicks the video icon, the other won't get a memo. A safety first approach. | The Takeaway Tinder built a big community on its customer interface, namely the 'swipe right'. And the brand remains the core part of Match's sales, hitting $1.4 billion in revenue last year, driving more than 90% of top-line growth in the last five years. Meanwhile, Hinge's numbers are absent from Match's statements but the turnaround there appears complete with downloads +82% this year after flatlining before Match made its move on the brand just 3 years ago
