Gen-z: Dating apps swipe right
BENGALURU: Meeting the right partner at a cafe or some place in this age of artificial intelligence (AI) is impossible and only apps can help you find the ideal match and also explore connections easier, says 25-year-old Namita Rao (name changed). She started using Bumble, an online dating app, during the second wave of COVID-19, and now she is living with the partner that she found on the app. After using 13 dating apps (including 4 Indian apps) over seven years, social media lead at a PR firm 31-year-old Gurudutt Biswal finally found his current girlfriend on Tinder.
The younger demographic is now ‘swiping’ to find matches and both homegrown and international dating apps are witnessing a huge spike in users. Many dating apps have seen their users surge during and also post pandemic. Snehil Khanor, co-founder and CEO, TrulyMadly, said Covid-19 had no positive or negative impact on their downloads or revenues. “Despite the pandemic, we kept growing and it had no negative impact on us. In terms of users, we have been growing 100% year-on-year,” he said.
The dating app has 13 million users, and of which 60% have come in the last three years. TrulyMadly targets only 26 years and above unlike other international apps that target the 18-23 years group. “We get users who have graduated from hook-up apps and are looking for someone to get married,” Khanor said.
Over 25,000 people have met on the app and got married. “The number could be actually more as these are the people who have reached out to us,” he said. The dating app aims to touch 40 million user base in the next five years.
Making hay as hearts bloom
Almost all apps have subscription fees unlike a few years ago. “Dating apps have increased many features and also the subscription cost. For every one girl, there will be 8-9 guys. At least 90% of paying customers of dating apps are men. With better algorithms, one can find a better match on foreign apps compared to Indian apps. Foreign apps have better features and they are also able to fight spam/fake profiles much better,” Biswal says.
Users also said that it is easier for women to find a match on dating apps than men, and many features are provided free of cost for them so as to increase the number of users. In the case of Bumble, only women can send the first message after a match.
“The percentage of female internet users is 27% and it is 25% for Facebook. We have 22% women users and this is because of our efforts in terms of branding, marketing and conducting various offline activities. We provide a lot of extra features that are free of cost for women. Men cannot see a woman’s username or take a screenshot of women’s profiles,” says Khanor.
TrulyMadly subscription fee starts at Rs 699 a week and goes on till Rs 2,800, as the plan offers various features including 10x more visibility and unlimited likes. Talking about fake profiles that remain a challenge for dating apps, Khanor says such profiles are being weeded out using AI. They call the algorithm Chowk-AI-dar.
Bumble operates on a freemium model, with the availability of different subscription packages like Bumble Boost at Rs 149 per week and Bumble Premium starting at Rs 449 for a week. Aisle subscription starts from 1,000 per month.
According to Statista, in India in the online dating market, the number of users is expected to touch 28.41 million users by 2027. As per data.ai report, India is the fifth fastest growing market in dating app spending in 2022. Indians spent $31 million more on dating apps in 2022 compared to 2021.
In April 2021, TrulyMadly raised $2.1 million from Venture Catalysts, and 9Unicorns, among others and again a year later it raised an undisclosed amount from We Founder Circle. So far, the dating app has raised $9.11 million, according to a Tracxn report. Many dating apps raised Series A rounds during the pandemic period. Another app FRND raised $6.5 million in December 2021, led by KRAFTON.
Surge in tier-2&3 cities
Samarpita Samaddar, India Communications Director, Bumble, said, “We have observed single Indians across India including tier 2 and tier 3 cities being more mindful of what they are looking for in a partner, women, in particular, are taking charge of their dating journeys.”
Able Joseph, founder and CEO of Aisle, says that they never thought tier 2 and tier 3 audiences would sign up on dating apps. Its South Indian apps, which were launched more than a year ago, have been growing 100%. Aisle offers regional online dating platforms such as Arike in Malayalam, Anbe for the Tamil community, among others. Together with all apps, Aisle has 15 million users.
Khanor of TrulyMadly says tier-2 and 3 cities are growing faster than tier 1. Around 45% of our monthly revenues come from tier 2 and 3 cities and around 54% of our monthly users are from these cities.
To get more users, different apps are working on new features. Aisle is now working on a solution or an interesting challenge in which users can identify how interested their matches are in them, and the experiments are being done internally. CEOs of homegrown Indian dating apps say they have introduced more safety features using latest technologies such as AI.
However, users say while it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of swiping through endless profiles, it is essential to take the time to really get to know the person behind the profile before jumping into a relationship.