Match.com announced Q1 2009 financial results today. Don’t worry, It’s Ok To look. Match.com has had a busy past few months. In December, Match.com Experiences Strongest November in Seven Years. With the launch of the Daily5, which introduces five new matches daily to every member, Match.com members initiated 400,000 more connections with other members this November compared to last November. Match members were showing up in Are You Interested search results on Facebook, but that went away quickly as Match rolled out their iPhone app.
In January Match.com Launches Free Online Dating Site DownToEarth.com. In February, IAC Appoints Greg Blatt CEO of Match.com. March saw Meetic and Match.com Announce European Partnership.
Highlights of the financials below.
Paid Subscribers: (000s) 1,438 up 6% from 1,352.
Revenue: $90.1 million, down 1%, about $400,000.
Operating income: $9.9 million, down -2%.
Operating (Loss) Income: $9.7 million up 37%.
Worldwide subscribers grew 6% in Q1 driven by gains in the U.S., the UK and Japan. Match announced an agreement to sell Match Europe for shares of Meetic and a promissory note, with a total current value of approximately $140 million. Will close in June. Match has 27% stake in Meetic.
Barry Diller: “Personals continues to grow and extend leadership.”
Revenue declined slightly reflecting a 15% decrease in revenue per subscriber in international markets, due primarily to the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange rates. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, international revenue grew and overall revenue grew 6%. International revenue declines were offset by a 9% increase in U.S. subscribers due in part to continuing improvements in features and functionality. Operating Income Before Amortization declines reflect $3.3 million in expenses associated with the pending sale of Match Europe to Meetic (announced February 19), partially offset by lower customer acquisition costs as a percentage of revenue, due to lower partner related costs in the current period. Operating income benefited from a decrease in amortization of non-cash marketing of $2.8 million.
Full IAC Q1 2009 financial report.
The number of subscribers remains flat, it was 1.2 million in 2007. Revenue is the same as 2007 levels as well. International expansion continues, new social features have been added and a new iPhone application has been recently released.
All eyes are on the International expansion war between eHarmony and Match. eHarmony is just getting started and Match is pretty much everywhere they need to be, tweaking the creative, reducing customer acquisition costs and performing all the regular dating site duties across a broad spectrum of markets. I’m especially interested to see how Match approaches the Chinese and Japanese markets.
We’re jaded here in the US, the needle will hardly budge anymore for large dating sites that aren’t actively acquiring new sites. Interesting to see what percentage the UK and Asian markets are of Match’s overall revenue.
Dating is becoming more and more like any sector of the online space, a few top leaders and the rest of the spoils divided up between a few mega niche sites and networks.
There are always plays that come from out of nowhere to command a few hundred thousand members based on small ad spends who basically have a great spider-sense for acquisition strategies and then there are companies like Skout who are taking the mobile dating space by storm.
Smaller dating sites without big bank, great service and unique marketing will continue to have a difficult time attracting, converting and retaining members, recession or not. I expect this to continue for the foreseeable future.
