As detailed by Jupiter’s lead analyst Nate Elliott in a report titled “Online Dating in 2006; Pricing Strategies to Drive Subscriber Growth,” increasing numbers of Europeans are finding love online, but U.S. subscribers are levelling and revenue growth is being driven by higher monthly dues instead of new memberships.
Jupiter claims that European users subscribing to online dating sites made a 43 percent leap in 2005 in countries such as Germany, Italy and Spain, while in the U.S., only 5 percent of users paid for access to dating sites, down from 6 percent in 2004.
According to Elliott, only one-third of Internet users who went to online dating sites in the last year became paying subscribers.
"The number of paid subscribers is stagnating," Elliott said in his report, which surveyed 2,369 Internet users.
The analyst attributes this decrease in the U.S. to user complaints over the high cost of subscriptions. The study also concludes that online social networking communities such as MySpace.com and others have not had any effect on online dating site stats.
However, Elliott says, overall revenue growth for market leaders in the U.S. was “impressive” and that while growth is still slow, it appears the online dating industry has “caught its second wind.”
Jupiter’s report on dating looks at several key questions including what percentage of online users have visited and subscribed to online dating sites in the last year; what are the key obstacles to converting users from visitors to paid subscribers; and how can smaller dating sites challenge the industry leaders.
Elliott concluded in his report that the boom in European use of online dating sites is not expected to continue indefinitely and that within the next few years, the European market will also level out in the same way the U.S. market has.