DESIBLITZ – Apr 3 – In Indian culture, marriage is a joining of two families rather than two individuals. Indian parents play a major role in their children's marriage and often create matches on their behalf. Aisle helps marriage-minded singles find love independently, without the influence of their families. All Aisle's members (range from ages 21 to 70) are approved before they can start swiping. Following its launch in 2014, Aisle began in India's major cities, but has since expanded and now reaches the Middle East, Europe and the US.
Category: All Worldwide (non UK/Euro/US)
Sugarbook CEO Claims Local Media Misled People Regarding His Arrest Warrant
TECH IN ASIA – Mar 30 – Sugarbook's founder and CEO Darren Chan has refuted local media reports claiming that he was arrested after he had failed to appear at the Malaysian court on Friday last week. Chan said that he was present at the appointed time, and that the magistrate revoked the arrest warrant against him on account of a "technical glitch" regarding the scheduling process. Earlier in February, the CEO was charged over the publication of a post about sugar baby universities in the country, allegedly with the intention to cause fear or unrest to the public.
BlueCity’s Q4 and Full Year 2020 Financial Results
GLOBE NEWSWIRE – Mar 24 – Total Q4 revenues reached RMB278.8M ($42.7M), up 24.2% YOY. Net loss was RMB73.1M ($11.2M), compared with net loss of RMB7.2M in the Q4 of 2019. Monthly active users reached 7.6M, up 20.3% YOY. Total paying users on the Blued mobile app reached 518K, up of 38% YOY. Total 2020 revenues reached RMB1.03B ($158M), up 35.9% YOY. 2020 net loss was RMB221.9M ($34M), compared with net loss of RMB52.9M in 2019.
How Tinder and K-dramas Changed Dating Preferences in Singapore
CNA LUXURY – Mar 23 – After 17 years, Lunch Actually is still playing Cupid. Founded in 2004, Lunch Actually is the brainchild of 41-year-old Violet Lim. In her early 20s, Lim was working as a management associate in a bank when she realised that most of her peers, though successful, were single. At the age of 24, Lim took the plunge and left her job to start Lunch Actually together with her now husband, Jamie Lee. To date, it has arranged ~140K dates and matched ~ 4,500 happily married couples. The company has also established offices in Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand. Thanks to dating apps, people have become more open to engaging an external party to help them find love, Lim shared. "The trouble with dating apps is that there are all sorts of characters." Lunch Actually started off as a service to match singles for a lunch date but is now offering coaching services. It launched its own dating app, LunchClick, in 2015 which is meant only for serious daters. Last year, the company also launched the Lunch Actually App, which helps its clients to set up appointments with consultants, view their matches, arrange dates, submit their feedback, and chat with dating coaches. Most recently, the company tapped into livestreaming. Lim has witnessed firsthand the changing preferences of Singaporeans. Interestingly, the Korean drama fever has had some effect. More people now are more concerned about physical appearance. "It could also be a result of Korean dramas, or just TV dramas in general," shared Lim. "Or it could be because of dating apps. On dating apps, the first thing you see is a person's photo."
Government-led Matchmaking Services Are Targeting Singles in Japan
CHINA DAILY – Mar 23 – As one of Japan's latest efforts to boost its tumbling birth rate, the rapidly graying nation has turned to AI for matchmaking, and Koitama is the local version of the central government's latest campaign. In Japanese, the word "koi" translates as "love". Because it is a government-led program, there are all kinds of requirements aimed at making people feel safe, such as having to provide proof that users are single. According to Japan's Cabinet Office, the central government plans to allocate 2B yen ($19M) this year to support local authorities that run programs to help residents find love. According to Statista, the market size of online matchmaking services for dating and marriage-seeking in Japan last year reached 62B yen, up from 26B yen in 2017. The market is forecast to grow by 70% from last year to 2025. However, this trend has failed to reverse the country's declining birth and marriage rates. Japan's population is declining at one of the fastest rates globally. In 2019, the number of births fell to 865K the lowest annual figure ever. ~35% of Japan's population is expected to be 65 or older by 2050. The number of marriages each year in Japan has fallen from 800K in 2000 to 600K in 2019.
New Chinese Dating Apps Fill the Gap Left by Tinder
SCMP – Mar 22 – "Online dating is the future in China," said Eric Zhou, founder of Slow and former head of global operations at TikTok. Zhou's app Slow officially launched at the end of 2020, around a year after its beta version first came out. Slow only lets each user view 48 profiles a day. And instead of having users swipe, Slow asks them to "like" a particular feature on each profile. The app currently has ~100K users. HIMMR, which stands for "How I Met Mr Right", is another online dating start-up. HIMMR has attracted 80K active users and organized ~300 physical events in eight cities.
China’s Marriage Rate Sees Sharpest Decline in 17 Years
Emerging Markets Need Dating Apps With Fresh Flavor and Flair
KR-ASIA – Mar 18 – VCs targeting emerging markets don't invest enough in the mobile dating sector – and that's a mistake, says Andy Tian, co-founder of AIG. Lamour is an app that makes video chats the center of its user experience. Launched in June 2019 by Beijing-based firm Asia Innovations Group (AIG), the platform claims to be the most-downloaded social dating app in major emerging markets. In India, Lamour registered 14M users as of Dec 2019, just six months after its local launch, becoming the most downloaded dating app in the country, according to Sensor Tower. Lamour has been at the center of controversies. It was accused of using bots and hiring women to pose as interested users to chat with men and lure them to pay. From Sep 2020, the app has been banned by the Indian government. Lamour had ~60M users as of Dec 2020. 30% of the app revenue comes from subscriptions and the majority of the revenue comes from virtual gifts.
RSVP Bought by Oasis Founders, Current Managers
OPW INTERVIEW – Mar 16 – Daniel Haigh (Dir. Product RSVP/Oasis since 2014) and Dave Heysen (CEO of RSVP/Oasis since 2014) created Oasis, which was bought by RSVP in 2014, the original Internet dating service at scale, in Australia. RSVP was bought by Fairfax Media in 2005, which itself was bought by Nine. Now Daniel and Dave are acquiring RSVP and will run it, along with Helium Dating, and launch a new app. I asked Daniel and Dave about their plans. – Mark Brooks
Why did you buy RSVP back?
Fairfax Media was acquired by Nine Entertainment in 2018, and as a result Nine became the major shareholder of RSVP. Since this transaction we recognised that RSVP would be better placed as an independent business and we (Dave & Daniel) are excited to have had the opportunity to complete a company buyback in January 2021. However, our relationship with Nine is still strong and we have an ongoing multimillion dollar media spend agreement in place over the next 3 years. The majority of this advertising will be for ongoing marketing of RSVP in Australia.
What will you do with RSVP next?
Although RSVP has certainly been affected by overseas competition, we are very confident about the future, and have a strong position in the Australia market. Our current focus is improving the services provided by RSVP. We genuinely want to help our customers find a lifelong partner, and will always refine our online dating platform while providing a high level of customer care. We are also completing the development of a brand new native app which we are super excited about.
How about Oasis?
Sadly we decided to close down our Oasis.com / Amorenlinea.com brands in December 2020. We had some serious backlash (to put it mildly) from our members upon announcing this decision as Oasis had a very strong following throughout Australia, UK and South/Central America. The service was no longer viable. Oasis was a free site and advertising revenue has been steadily declining year after year, while the technology platform was becoming more expensive to maintain.
You launched a new app recently. Can you tell us more about it?
We soft launched a new online dating app called Helium at the end of 2020. Although we are still rapidly developing the app we are excited about initial numbers with almost 200,000 users having signed up to the service. Features include direct contact (none of this swiping or liking stuff), fully featured (and encrypted) messaging platform, mini-video calling, 'Really Me' verification and so much more! Helium is available worldwide in all English and Spanish Latin American markets. See https://www.heliumdating.com.
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Xiaomi Is Launching an App Called Heyy
TECHGENYZ – Mar 15 – The app is by Metso Software Design which Xiaomi acquired back in 2015. Heyy is an online voice speed dating software that will show recommendations, dating habits and characteristics of that user. The app could also be used for voice one-on-one chats, games and voice talks; users can also make new friends on the app.