Dating apps: This is how German providers are defying the crisis

No walk through the city without dating app providers outdoing each other with eye-catching prints at bus and train stops. Tinder, the mother of the “swipe” principle, uses eccentric kitsch images in the Berlin subway. The scenes on the posters are reminiscent of the Barbie film: a pink pool in which lovers hold hands on air mattresses. “Take things in a relaxed manner” is what it says. Hinge, a subsidiary of Match Group, which is behind Tinder, is even promoting the idea of ​​abolishing itself. “Download. Fall in love. “Delete” is emblazoned on a poster. Almost minimalistic in contrast to the yellow stickers of its competitors Bumble, which encourage people to take the first step.

A Tiktoker who filmed dating advertising campaigns in a subway station in Berlin asks the question that inevitably arises: Why the whole thing? Her guess: Tinder and Co. don’t work that way anymore, “because people have checked that real life is a little hotter.”

There could actually be something to the observation. The share prices of US companies Match Group and Bumble have been sliding for months. Shares in the Tinder Group have lost more than 80 percent of their value since their overall high of around $170 in the Corona year 2021. A share still costs just under 33 euros. A similar picture emerges with competitor Bumble, which planned to go public on the New York Stock Exchange Nasdaq in 2021. The share’s loss in value over the past three years is more than 91 percent.

Bumble is making losses, Tinder is losing customers – and what are the Germans doing?

With the concept that only women can send messages to a male user in the event of a match, Bumble made more than a billion US dollars in sales in 2023. At the same time, the company posted a loss of almost $2 million, according to its annual report. Match Group reported total revenue of $3.3 billion last year. However, quarterly reports show that the number of paying customers is falling significantly. While the Tinder Group still had around 15.6 million subscription customers worldwide in the second quarter of last year, there are a good 800,000 fewer in the comparable period of 2024.