Although Match.com, made up less than 5% of his holding company IAC’s $6.5 billion in sales last year, it accounted for more than 10% of the company’s $464 million in profits. In the past two years, Match has boosted the number of paying customers by a third.
At Match, 23 percent of subscribers are over 50, more than double the number two years ago. Yahoo Personals has seen double-digit growth in the number of users over 50 in the past two years, thanks in part to a new service that provides extra control, privacy, and security. EHarmony’s fastest-growing age group last year was the over-50 segment.
Just four months after Jim Safka took over, Match saw a 10 percent increase in paid subscriptions and by early 2005 the number of subscribers topped 1 million. Today, quarterly sales have risen to $80 million, from $50 million when he took over, and operating margins are approaching 20 percent. Traffic to the Match site has increased 18 percent over the past year to 4.3 million unique visitors per month, just short of the 4.5 million monthly visitors to Yahoo Personals – which has seen its traffic drop 24 percent over the past year, according to the market research firm comScore.
WSJ via AZ Central.
