Category: All UK & Europe

iDate Coverage – Online Matchmaking In The German And European Markets

Posted on September 19, 2010

Peter schmid parship OPW – Sep 16 – There are 44M singles in Western Europe. 50% are looking for love online.  There is great market potential but strong competition with 4000+ dating and matchmaking sites. The European online dating revenue stands at 600M Euro and Parship has double-digit growth. 100M Euros will be spent on TV idating advertising in Germany alone, in 2010. The German TV ad spend has increased 5 times in just 2 years. 80% of media spending is from serious dating sites like Parship. Overall ad idating ad spends in Germany are up 67% from 2008.

Online dating is much more socially acceptable in Germany. Parship started in 2001 and focused purely on serious relationships. Today Parship claims to have ~10M members with a 38% users success rate.
 
Parship's differentiators are:

– focused on sophisticated members, offers a safe and reliable service
– very active and busy professionals, age 30-55
– anonymous, no photo galleries
– expert team of 16 psychologists and sociologist (Prof. Hugo Schmale) who constantly refines and updates test and matching process & provides personal coaching for members
– Parship partners with renowned media names – In Germany – RTL, Die Welt. De, Spiegel Online, The Independent, in France – Le Monde, L'express.fr and others.

The top matchmaking sites according to Parship, are:

France
   1. MeeticAffinity.fr
   2. eDarling
   3. Parship.fr & Be2

Belgium
   1. Parship
   2. be2
   3. Meetic Affinity

Germany
   1. Parship.de
   2. Elite Partner
   3. eDarling
   4. Partner.de
 
Switzerland
   1. Parship
   2. ElitePartner
   3. be2
   4. eDarling
 
UK
   1. eHarmony
   2. Match Affinity/DatingDirect
   3. Parship.co.uk
 
What the future holds for online dating/matchmaking:

– We will see higher acceptance of online dating
– We will see growth of niche sites with highly relevant services (GayParship.com is the leading matchmaking service for the gay community in Europe. 8 weeks ago gayParship launched worldwide
– Mobile (Parship launched mobile app few weeks ago and saw ~5K downloads)
– Increase of use of social media – Peter Schmid, CEO of Parship

Is Meetic For Sale?

Posted on September 13, 2010

Meetic logo LE FIGARO – Sep 13 – The two main shareholders of Meetic, the leading European dating site, confirmed that Messier Partners mandated to "evaluate all strategic options for the company and its shareholders." Among these options, Marc Simoncini, who still holds 22.98% stake in the company he founded, and Match Pegasus, which owns 26.72% stake, may sell their holdings. According to the statement released Sunday night, "no takeover bid has been received and any decision to sell was made". By unveiling half-year results in July, Meetic has confirmed his good health: the sequential growth stood at 10.6% in the Q2. Since the beginning of the year, Meetic shares rose 12.3%. FULL ARTICLE @ LE FIGARO

See all posts on Meetic

Italian Males Biggest Users Of Dating Sites From Mobiles

Posted on August 26, 2010

Comscore logo new BIG MOUTH MEDIA – Aug 26 - Males aged 25 to 34 are leading the way in Europe's mobile dating market, according to comScore. This demographic accounts for 22% of the 11M Europeans who access online dating sites from mobile devices each month, compared to 8.7% of females in the same age bracket. Online dating via mobiles increased by 52% from June 2009 to the same month this year, according to comScore's MobiLens.

The full article was originally published at Big Mouth Media, but is no longer available.

C-Date.de, The 2nd Largest Dating Site In Germany

Posted on August 23, 2010

Cdate logo PRESS RELEASE – Aug 23 – According to ComsCore, casual dating site C-Date ranked as #2 dating site in Germany with 564,000 unique visitors in June. C-Date is available in 35 countries and has over 3.1M registered users with 10,000 new users registering each day. In Oct 2009 Nielsen Online also ranked C-Date as #1 dating site in Spain as well as #3 in France and Switzerland. 

The full article was originally published at Open PR, but is no longer available.

Singles Boosting German Dating Sites’ Profits

Posted on August 23, 2010

Online dating111 DW WORLD – Aug 20 - Every month ~7M German singles are active on online
dating sites. And with over 2,000 German online dating sites, it would
seem that these singles are spoiled for choice. This, however, isn't
necessarily the reality as the public loses track of which sites are
actually useful, according to Henning Wiechers, CEO of
Singleboersen-vergleich, an online portal that rates dating websites in
Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Although many areas of e-commerce tend
to be dominated by large American companies, Wiechers said 7 of
Germany's top 10 online dating platforms are "made in
Germany." Hamburg-based ElitePartner targets high-income singles with a
university education. ElitePartner's last year's turnover was over 20M
euros ($25 million). Other leading websites, like FriendScout24 said it registers thousands of new members every day. FULL ARTICLE @ DW WORLD

See all posts on ElitePartner
See all posts on FriendScout24

Parship Launches Its Gay Service Worldwide

Posted on August 19, 2010

Parship gayparship logo PRESS RELEASE – Aug 19 – Parship
is now offering its gay service on a global scale: from now on,
gay men and lesbians around the world can go on a worldwide search for a
suitable partner by visiting gay-parship.com. The site is now available in nine
languages. FULL ARTICLE @ PARSHIP.DE

See all posts on Parship

Survey Results: Would You Try Blind Dating?

Posted on August 19, 2010

Another friend nove logo ANOTHER FRIEND – Aug 19 – According to AnotherFriend.com's survey, 62% of singles have never been on a blind date, but “wouldn't rule it out”. Of the 27% of single Irish men and women who had tried blind dating, a significant 13% said that it had resulted in them finding their “perfect partner”. On the other side, 56% of those who had experimented with this form of dating, said it had been “a complete disaster”, with the remaining 32% reporting that they are still friends with the person.

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Dating Sites Boom In Sweden

Posted on August 10, 2010

Swedish flag SWEDISH WIRE – Aug 9 – Outside the US and the UK, the Nordic countries
are the strongest markets for online dating, according to Johan Siwers,
managing director for Match.com. New competitors seem to be popping up
every day. More than three million Swedes have tried net dating, making
up a third of the total population of nine million. FULL ARTICLE @ SWEDISH WIRE

Britons Being Duped By West African Gangs On Dating Sites

Posted on June 1, 2010

Fraudster TELEGRAPH.CO.UK – June 1 - Fraudsters in Nigeria and Ghana are creating fictitious
profiles with photos of good looking men and women and then sending
thousands of scam emails to victims in Britain. The increasing problem
has forced the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) to send officers
from its Anti-Kidnap and Extortion Unit to West Africa to help train
police there. Soca has said that millions of Britons are being targeted
by organised criminal gangs using the latest mass marketing techniques
to defraud them of ~ £3.5 billion a year. FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

Guardian News & Media Legal Action Over ‘Database Infringement’

Posted on May 27, 2010

Guardian soulmates logo PRESS GAZETTE – May 27 - Guardian News & Media (GMN), the newspaper publisher, launched its action against businessman Daniel Yorke and his companies Dating Network and X Factor Online Dating after being contacted by three members of its Soulmates service asking why their profiles were appearing on other dating sites. GMN claims that by November last year the dating sites had more than 9,000 profiles in their databases that were identical to those in Soulmates. Use of the Soulmates profiles is a misrepresentation, the writ alleges, and calculated to lead people to believe GNM is involved in a commercial arrangement with the two dating sites, which it is not.

The full article was originally published at Press Gazette, but is no longer available.

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