Our team dived into the dating apps and websites industry and came up with a list of 111 companies worth your attention.

Overview

The pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of our life. Coronavirus restrictions prevented people from meeting others and turned many to dating sites and apps searching for social connections. It is no wonder that the online dating industry has experienced tremendous growth in the past year, with over 270 million adults worldwide using dating apps, nearly double the number from five years earlier.

Latest Statista data shows that revenue of the online dating segment is estimated to rise at a 7.13 percent annual rate (CAGR 2021-2025), resulting in a market volume of US$4,744 million by 2025. The United States is expected to contribute the most as it has surpassed $700 million in 2021.

The number of users is projected to reach 489.9 million by 2025.

Newer applications like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge, which are mobile-based and significantly more tailored to casual dating, have mainly contributed to increasing dating apps usage.

With the ability to just swipe left or right based on your dating preferences, Tinder transformed the dating scene. This single change eliminated the need for a matchmaker to go through thousands of alternatives and select the best match for you. Tinder has not only made the process easier but also shifted the dating mindset away from long-term relationships and toward quick hook-ups and garish openers. Recent studies, however, show that nowadays, singles are less obsessed with casual relationships and more interested in intentional dating.

When the choice was: Do I want my love life determined by a psychologist or a mathematician, I pick a mathematician every day of the week… We fundamentally believe that the way to predict compatibility is to rely on data and to allow people to customize an algorithm that would take into account their preferences and their lifestyle to cull through the millions of profiles we had to find the people that were most compatible with them.

Sam Yagan, CEO of The Match Group

In recent years, Bumble and Hinge have attempted to differentiate themselves from Tinder by positioning their services as more suited to relationships than hook-ups.

Tinder dominates the scene with more than 70 million users and more than 65 billion matches worldwide recorded in 2021. Badoo holds second place, overtaking the North American and European market.

To stay competitive in the market, major companies are adding new features to their products. Badoo, for example, has offered an addition to the live video chat feature, allowing users to communicate face-to-face. Tinder has introduced a live, interactive dating function called “Swipe Night,” in which users follow a storyline together. These new features encourage users to spend more time in-app by allowing them to develop stronger bonds through mediums such as voice memos and videos.

I think as people have gotten more comfortable using video, it now becomes the “coffee date” It breaks the ice quickly, and it has led to more meaningful first dates. It’s become more of a permanent change in the way people use dating apps. I think video is going to be transformative.

Amarnath Thombre, Head of Match’s brands in the Americas

Namepicks

Match Group, Inc. 

Match Group owns and operates the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services, including Tinder, Match.com, Meetic, OkCupid, Hinge, PlentyOfFish, Ship, and OurTime, totaling over 45 dating companies worldwide. Until July 2020, the company was owned by IAC. Match Group had a market capitalization of $30 billion at the time of the split, making it the largest ever for IAC.

Given wide-ranging consumer preferences, we approach the category with a brand portfolio strategy, through which we attempt to offer dating products that collectively appeal to the broadest spectrum of consumers.

Match Group, Inc. 

The corporate site is is on mtch.com and one of their brands operates on match.com. For PlentyOfFish they have secured both PlentyOfFish.com and POF.com. Most of their global recognized brands operate on exact brand match domains as okcupid.com, tinder.com, ourtime.com. The group owns over 1700 domains in total, among which names like kiss.com and chemistry.com, as well as many country specific names and variants of their brands’ spellings. Having a solid domain name name strategy for your brand conveys trust and authority and is a preferred choice of the majority of successful global brands.

Badoo

Badoo is a dating-focused social network that operates in 190 countries and is available in 47 different languages. The company was founded in 2016 by the Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev. Badoo is a freemium service, which means that the basic service is available to everyone for free, but users may choose to pay for additional services.

The brand has secured Badoo.com, an exact brand match name with the global .com extension. Badoo also owns 231 domains, with different new extensions for their brand name like badoo.sucks or badoo.design.

Bumble

Bumble is an online dating application. Similar to Tinder, it offers “swipe left” ” and “swipe right” options to reject a candidate or to indicate interest. Bumble’s revenue rose 36% to $488.9 million in 2019, then grew 19% to $582.2 million in 2020. The company reports having over 55 million users in 150 countries.

The idea for Bumble came from Whitney Wolfe, who was VP of Marketing at Tinder. She left after a sexual harassment suit and later a settlement and started her own dating app with a mission to change the dating world. Wolfe told Esquire that she spent weeks on a Russian word generator to come up with a name for her new brand, but in the end a board member suggested the Bumble. “At first we all rolled our eyes,” she confessed. “But then we thought about it. Wait a second. Bumble—like the bee society. There’s a queen bee, the woman is in charge, and it’s a really respectful community. It’s all about the queen bee and everyone working together. It was very serendipitous.”

Bumble—like the bee society. There’s a queen bee, the woman is in charge, and it’s a really respectful community. It’s all about the queen bee and everyone working together. It was very serendipitous.

Whitney Wolfe, founder Bumble

Bumble has invested in Bumble.com – an exact brand match .com name. 

eHarmony

eHarmony is an online dating website launched in 2000in Los Angeles, California, and owned by Nucom eCommerce. The company uses an algorithm to match people’s core traits and values. eHarmony’seHarmony’s membership base includes over 10 million people spread over 200 countries with 750,000 paid subscribers. Eharmony operates on the exact brand match domain eharmony.com. This ensures their brand is well protected online, avoids traffic and email leaks, and confusion amongst their customers and business partners.

The brand owns over 1924 domain names, including country extensions, misspellings of their brand name like eharmoney.com and new domain extensions like eharmony.dating to protect their brand.

Highlights

94 companies operate on .com extension domains. Recent studies show that people are 3.8 times more likely to think a URL ends in .com while trying to remember it. The .co extension is used by 7 companies on the list. It was introduced in 1991 and was originally registered for Columbia. Its been later transformed to cc generic TLD name.

77 brands have secured exact brand match domain names. By purchasing a .com domain name that corresponds to their brand name, companies can ensure that their brand is protected online and that their consumers, business partners, and investors can easily access them.

4 companies use a dash in their name. When a two-word brand name company has to make a domain compromise because the exact brand match name is already taken, dashes commonly come to the rescue.

While we make every effort to ensure the data on our site is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, we cannot guarantee its reliability. Our data is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal, financial, or other advice. We strongly recommend that you independently verify any information before relying on it.

Other resources

• The Keys to Lasting Relationships: An Interview with Railey, Relationship Coach and Love Educator
• Would you date your brand?
• The Importance of Investing in a Strong Domain Name for Your Business
• The Benefits of Premium Domain Names for SMEs

How does your brand name match your company vision? What new horizons can a better name open? Get in touch if you feel your brand deserves a better name, we are always happy to help.

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