Sawt Falasteen - Dating apps move to friend zone in search of profits

The giants of the industry -- Bumble and Match, which owns Tinder -- have both created apps catering to friendly meetups, joining countless smaller platforms that have already entered the friend zone.

Bumble For Friends launched in July last year and by the third quarter of this year had around 730,000 monthly active users, according to figures from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

Bumble has also acquired the Geneva app, which caters to people wanting to form groups around particular interests.

"It's just the beginning of our vision to expand the company's footprint and helping people find connections broadly," Bumble CEO Lidiane Jones said during the Web Summit in Lisbon on Wednesday.

Match, meanwhile, launched the Yuzu app in February targeting the Asian community in the United States, offering a choice between friendly or romantic encounters.

The group has also been testing a service dedicated to friendship in France on its dating app for older people, DisonsDemain.

Both firms have suffered dramatic slumps since the boom times of the pandemic, when millions turned to the apps during periods when governments restricted people's movements.

- 'App fatigue' -

Sensor Tower said while Bumble For Friends was soaring, its dating app had shed eight percent of its monthly active users between the start of October last year and this year -- the figure now standing at 21 million.

Tinder, by far the biggest dating app with around 53 million monthly active users, saw a 16 percent slump in the same period.

Seema Shah of Sensor Tower said users were feeling "app fatigue".

"It's affecting all apps but in particular these dating apps. People are just kind of tired of it," she said.

Tinder was hit particularly hard as it targeted younger users between 18 and 22.

"This is the same age group that likes to do a lot of things in person," she said.

These declines are hitting the firms where it really hurts -- the wallet.

Match Group has shed more than $40 billion from its value in three years.

Bumble achieved a valuation of more than $20 billion when it went public in 2021, but it is now worth only about $1.3 billion.

The firm announced the layoff of a third of its workforce in February.

And success in the friend zone is far from assured, with plenty of apps already battling to attract future BFFs.

- Novelty factor -

The apps often cater to particular situations -- WeRoad and TripBFF connect solo travellers, Wink and Plura help people find friends based on their interests.

French app Timeleft, launched last year, brings together six strangers every week for dinner at a restaurant.

The app has already organised dinners in 280 cities across 62 countries and is getting closer to profitability, cofounder Maxime Barbier told AFP.

He said diners were assembled using an algorithm enriched by the results of personality tests taken by the users.

For Arthur Czubinski, a 32-year-old translator, it is a winning formula.

He told AFP he had been to 12 dinners organised by the app in just a few months.

"Some of the tables have been incredible," he said.

But Seema Shah suggested the first flushes of success for friendship apps were at least partly down to novelty.

She expressed doubt people would pay in the long term.

"It's probably easier to find friends in your area if you join some activity or through your job," she said.

V.Said--SF-PST