US Online Dating Market by the Numbers: 20M Visitors in December
The US online dating market will reach $932 million in 2011,
according to a latest report from JupiterResearch. The number of paying
customers to U.S. dating sites
has stayed steady at around 5% of Internet users in the five years of
the annual survey by JupiterResearch.
US Online Dating Market:
- Only 10% of Internet users visited at least one online dating site in 2006, down from 16% in 2005 and 21% in 2002, says the Jupiter
- 10% of the consumers in Jupiter's survey said they posted a free profile on an online dating site last year compared to 11% in 2005.
- Traffic to 7 of the top 10 online dating sites declined in the last year, according to Nielsen/Net-Ratings.
- In December 2006, more than 20 million US Internet users visited online dating sites, says comScore.
Top Sites:
|
Top
Personals Sites in the |
|
|
Web Properties |
Total Unique Visitors (000) Dec-06 |
|
Total Web
Users in the |
152,350 |
|
Personals Category Total |
20,555 |
|
Yahoo! Personals |
4,153 |
|
Match.com Sites** |
3,970 |
|
TRUE.COM |
3,086 |
|
Spark Networks |
2,504 |
|
SINGLESNET.COM |
2,173 |
| Source: comScore Media Metrix, February 2007 | |
- Yahoo Personals ended December as the No. 1 online dating site in the U.S, though traffic to Yahoo Personals declined 10% YoY to 4.4 million unique visitors in December, according to Nielsen/Net-Ratings.
- Traffic to AmericanSingles fell 36% to 1.3 million visitors in December, says Nielsen/NetRatings. For the first nine months of 2006, the number of paid subscribers to AmericanSingles fell 22% from the year-earlier period, to 84,410, the company says.
- In December, Match.com ranked as the third-most-visited online dating site behind Yahoo Personals and True.com, says Nielsen/Net-Ratings. It had 3.9 million unique visitors in December, down 3% from a year earlier, Nielsen says. The IAC units Match.com and sister site Chemistry.com ended the fourth quarter with 1.27 million paid subscribers, up 7%.
Online Dating in Europe:
- JupiterResearch has also found that European online dating sites are attracting new users and will double revenues from 243 million euros in 2006 to 549 million euros in 2011.
- In contrast to the US dating market, European consumer usage of online dating sites has shown consistent growth since 2003. The number of European users who report using online dating sites has grown from 4% in 2005 to 6% in 2006.
- The European online dating market will increase from 2.8 million paid users in 2006 to 6.0 million in 2011, said JupiterResearch.
- In 2003, Europeans spent less than one-quarter as much as US users on online dating sites. In 2006 they spent approximately one-half as much, and in 2011 they will spend more than three-quarters as much.
- Jupiter expects the markets to mature by 2011, with European market growing by just 9% compared to the US market's 6% growth.
OkCupid, America’s largest free online dating site, has announced it has closed $6 million in Series A funding. OkCupid is the fastest growing free, online dating site in the United States with more than 2 million monthly unique users and 500,000 active users.
Related/Sources:
-
Sobering Valentine’s Day Statistics - Online Dating Insider
- Online Dating 2.0: Thirteen Sites To Find Love - TechCrunch
