The online dating space is massive, with thousands of apps and companies being created (and failing) each year.
In this segment from the Industry Focus: Tech podcast, Dylan Lewis and Sarah Priestley talk about the market leader for the industry, Match Group (NASDAQ: MTCH). Tune in to find out just how huge the company is compared with its competitors.
A transcript follows the video.
This podcast was recorded on July 8, 2016.
Dylan Lewis: Yeah. So you have this one big fish, and after that, it's a heavily fragmented market space. Match is a natural segue here, it's a perfect stat to lead into the conversation I want to talk about, because Match is the company we want to discuss. They're kind of the only real way to play this market. If it's something you're interested in on the investing side, they're the only game in town, right?
Sarah Priestley: Pretty much.
Lewis: So let's get a little bit of background on them.
Priestley: Match Group was spun off from IAC (IAC +0.00%), which we'll talk about a little bit more. They have a portfolio of over 45 brands, which is huge. So they're kind of on a spending spree to buy up everybody that's operating in the market. Since 2009, they've done 26 acquisitions, which is a phenomenal pace. They have 59 million active users across all of their brands, and 5.1 million of those are paid members. They're operating mostly in the U.S., but they have websites across 190 countries and 38 languages.
Lewis: Which basically covers most of the globe, right? Depending on what stat you look at, there's 196 to low 200s, in terms of countries in the world. So that's pretty good reach.
Priestley: Yep. In any country you're in, you can online date. That's good. They also own the Princeton Review, which is kind of ... I'm not sure how I feel about that being part of the company. The Princeton Review is a test-preparation company that mostly operates through providing test papers for SATs. They want to move that online, and they have a lot of ideas about how they're going to improve that business. It is interesting for them, but it fits strangely with the dating.
Lewis: Yeah, you look at their portfolio, and they have these 45 brands, all of them are heavily dating oriented. Match.com, Tinder, which we'll talk about a little bit more -- GenXPeopleMeet, DivorcedPeopleMeet -- it's kind of crazy the different properties that they own. And then, of course, the Princeton Review. IAC/Interactive Corp., their parent company, is known for its online properties. I think that's why you have that seemingly odd combination, but it seems like, with what they want to do with the Princeton Review, the online focus in digital orientation kind of makes some sense. We'll get into the revenue mix more there.
