FINANCIAL TIMES – happn has been acquired by China’s Hello Group, owner of Momo and Tantan, to accelerate expansion into Asia, particularly China and Japan. The app, which uses geolocation to connect people who cross paths in daily life, has 170M registered users and has been profitable since 2019, with strong traction in India, Turkey, Brazil, and parts of Europe. Growth in the US has slowed, reflecting broader pressures on the industry. Karima Ben Abdelmalek, CEO of happn, stresses that the real challenge is not competition, but changing user behavior: people want to spend less time online. She argues the industry must “reinvent itself” by moving away from forcing endless swiping and chatting, and instead create “more reasonable” experiences where people meet faster and offline. For happn, this means leaning on its location-based strength, showing users others who go to the same venues, using AI to suggest places to meet, and expanding into features for socialising that go beyond dating. The Hello Group deal gives happn the scale and resources to adapt its model and push into new growth markets.
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