The market is in the heart of the first-quarter earnings season, with many stocks reporting their financials for the first three months of 2022. Match Group (MTCH -0.84%) is one of these companies, putting out its Q1 earnings after the close on May 3. The online dating conglomerate grew both its revenue and earnings in the quarter and outlined the long-term opportunity with online dating in its shareholder letter. However, even though the business is growing and healthy, the stock is down, and actually lower than when it spun out of InterActiveCorp in 2020.
Down 40% this year, Match Group looks like an attractive investment at these prices. Here are three reasons to buy the stock after its latest earnings report.
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1. Large opportunity ahead
Match Group's revenue grew 20% year over year to $799 million in Q1. Payers, a metric that quantifies the number of people who paid for a service during a period, hit 16.3 million in Q1, up 13% year over year. The majority of these payers are using Tinder, Match Group's largest service. The casual dating app grew revenue by 18% year over year in Q1. Profitability looked sound, with adjusted operating income growing 19% year over year to $273 million in the quarter.
The financial growth looked fine, but the most interesting highlight from the shareholder letter was Match Group sharing its total monthly active users (MAUs) across its services, something it typically does not disclose to investors. In Q1, the company had close to 100 million MAUs, up from around 60 million at the time of its initial public offering in 2015. This is relevant because it shows how early the online dating market is in its development. With close to 1 billion single adults around the world, there is plenty of room to double or even triple MAUs across Match Group's services in the next decade. This, in turn, can keep revenue growing at high rates for many years.
2. Diversification away from Tinder
Tinder is great, but relying on one dating app for growth puts concentration risk on Match Group's business and restricts it from properly serving different age groups, cultures, and demographics (Tinder is primarily for casual daters under the age of 25). Luckily the company is making steady progress to diversify its revenue, with its other brands growing revenue by 22% year over year in Q1.
Its most promising near-term opportunity is Hinge, a relationship-focused dating app targeted at a slightly older population than Tinder. Revenue continues to grow rapidly on the application and is projected to 10x from 2019 to 2022. Match Group is rolling out Hinge globally starting in 2022 (it is only in English-speaking markets right now), starting with Germany in the second quarter. This international push can hopefully keep Hinge growing its revenue at a rapid rate for many years. One day, it may even be as big as Tinder.
Match Group is building new applications and dating services to target people who are underserved on its mainstream apps like Tinder, Hinge, or Match.com. Recently, it launched Stir, a dating application that is targeting the 20 million single parents in the United States. In the shareholder letter, management said there are more apps expected to launch in the next few years going after specific underserved audiences. If and when any of these applications are successful, they will help drive revenue growth over the long term.
3. Attractive valuation
Luckily, with the current market downturn, Match's share price has gotten fairly attractive. With a market cap of $22 billion, the stock trades at a trailing price-to-free-cash-flow ratio of 23.5, or right around the market average.
Beyond the company's valuation, it's grown nearly 40% annually for the past five years. Given that Match Group has a strong track record of rapid growth, has a huge industry tailwind at its back, and has executed brilliantly expanding its portfolio, I think the stock is an easy buy at these prices. That is, if you're willing to buy and hold for five-plus years.
