Playing Cupid in a country 1.3 billion residents strong sounds like a winning formula for China.com. The growing portal is teaming up with Europe's Meetic to launch an online dating service in the world's most populous country. Since its launch four years ago, Meetic has attracted more than a million registered users who post profiles and hit active, moderated, online chatrooms in search of that special cyber-someone.
It's a logical move for China.com. Internet dating is a major component of some of the stateside bellwethers like Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) and IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI). Even wedding-planning site The Knot (NASDAQ:KNOT) has reached earlier into the courtship cycle by acquiring a pair of online dating sites.
Even if roughly 10% of China is online at the moment, that number skews toward younger users, who relish online fantasy games from companies like NetEase (NASDAQ:NTES) and ShandaInteractive (NASDAQ:SNDA). In other words, it may be a small market at the moment, but Web-based matchmaking should be a major draw for the young Internet audience, whose disposable income continues to grow.
CDC (NASDAQ:CHINA), which owns 77% of China.com, has been busy lately. The company is beefing up its online gaming pipeline. Earlier this week, it also announced the purchase of Timeheart, a provider of short messaging services for mobile devices. Coming off another healthy quarter that found its bottom line tripling, CDC is showing no signs of slowing.
In the dating space, one would consider CDC the equivalent of good looks and a killer personality. For investors, that may be a portfolio match worth making.
NetEase , The Knot, and Shanda have all been singled out as picks in the Rule Breakers growth stock service. Yahoo! has been recommended in the Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter. Try any of our Foolish newsletters free for 30 days.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz wouldn't mind brushing up on his Mandarin, especially given the booming economy in a country that is 1.3 billion residents strong. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. T he Fool has a disclosure policy.
