Dirk Pflitsch at Online-Dating-News has published an analysis “Online Dating Companies in Germany” which is based on a paper based survey filled out by 46 of 60 mayor players. Dirk contends that Jupiter
We estimated a €116 million market in 2006 while Jupiter Research said €66 million.
We try to explain the difference:
– We included adult dating and niche dating sites as for Christians, Single Parents… (about €20 million).
– Jupiter data is based on asking a few 100 Germans about their online behaviour
while we have a direct access to the companies. Their way causes some problems, i.e.:
The turnover increased because most of the German dating companies switched from a non-reccuring to a auto-recurring membership.
But most of the mebers don’t even know that – thats why turnover increased!
– Jupiter’s wording for their European study was not very precise – they mixed up
“Online Dating”, “Online Personals”, “Paying members” so:
– Did they include online matchmaker Parship.com (about €20 million in 2006, see (http://www.welt.de/welt_print/article918485/Das_Geschaeft_mit_der_Liebe_im_Netz.html )?
– Did they include turnover earned by ads? (about 10%)?An English version of the key facts of our survey is available here:
http://www.singleboersen-vergleich.de/news_einzel/redaktion_2007_06_12_online-dating-market-germany.htm
Sorry Dirk, I won’t be able to meet with you on the left coast or Vegas next month, thanks for the invite though!
