Thirty-three percent fewer consumers are browsing online personals today than one year ago, causing the industry growth to slow considerably, says a new report.
JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation, today announced some of the key findings of its latest report on the online personals industry, “Online Dating: Serious Daters Offer Salve For Slowing Growth”, which is based on a survey of over 2,300 online adults, and also includes JupiterResearch’s forecast for the growth of the online personals market.
“For years, online dating sites saw large numbers of new users flowing into the market every year,” said JupiterResearch Associate Analyst Nate Elliott.
“As a result, the industry grew by 73% in 2002 and 77% in 2003. But in 2004, as the number of users actually started to decline, the market grew by only 19%. In 2005, the industry will grow by just 9%, to $516 million.”
With fewer users browsing online personals, dating sites have focused on increasing conversions of viewers into paying subscribers in order to keep growing. Industry-wide conversion rates have increased approximately 25% in the last year. Many dating sites are also looking to serious daters, those users hoping to find long-term relationships or marriage, to increase revenues.
“Serious daters present an attractive opportunity for personals sites,” said Elliott. “These users convert 20% more often, are twice as likely to purchase long-term subscriptions and pay up to twice as much per month as casual daters,” added Elliott. The JupiterResearch report also addresses how companies are attracting these profitable users to their sites.
The complete findings of this report are immediately available to JupiterResearch clients online.
For additional information on the report visit JupiterResearch’s Digital Content.