Hundreds of Thousands of Singles Flocked to Dating Apps Ahead of Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day – which is today if it hasn’t been pointed out to you already – has seen hundreds of thousands of lonely souls flocking to dating apps in the hope of not being alone on the day of love.

According to Apptopia, in the two weeks leading up to Cupid’s favourite day, Tinder, perhaps unsurprisingly, had the most downloads and daily active users (DAUs) compared to other major dating apps in the US. Despite this, rival dating app Match saw revenues of more than double the amount – mainly through in-app purchases (IAPs).

Tinder had 370,569 downloads in the first 13 days of the month, and did not drop below 540,000 DAUs – peaking at 580,000 on 8 February. Match wasn’t too far behind, in terms of downloads, achieving 331,179 but its DAUs saw massive fluctuations. The popular app did not drop below 267,000 DAUs but saw a huge increase in users on 5 February (414,000), 12 February (466,000) and 13 February (428,000). The number of users in the two days prior to Valentine’s Day show Match may be the app of choice for those bright-eyed, hopeful (desperate?) singletons.

Elsewhere, OkCupid Dating achieved the third most downloads (224,612), followed by Bumble (203,250), Hinge (149,834), Grindr (136,511), eHarmony (123,424) and Happn (42,744).

Meanwhile, in the revenue stakes, $751,894 of the $775,826 total revenue made by Match came from IAPs. The amount made by Match dwarfs the still impressive revenues achieved by Tinder – which can account $367,794, of its $369,131 earned, to in-app purchases. The third biggest revenue player was OkCupid Dating ($335,359), followed by Grindr ($278,628), eHarmony ($246,142), Hinge ($125,176), Bumble ($123,271) and Happn ($10,679).

In comparison, the UK has been dominated by Tinder on all fronts. It has had the most downloads, the highest DAUs and the biggest revenue by a country mile.

It was downloaded 38,947 times over the period – its closes competition coming from Grindr’s 20,289 downloads. In addition, it was downloaded by around 2,000 more people than any other day, in the period, on the day prior to Valentine’s Day. It also saw its DAUs rocket to 221,658 on the same day – more than double any other day (us poor lonely Brits).

While all those Brits were swiping away, Tinder managed to rake in $157,210 in revenues – its next closest competitor was once again Grindr, with $19,139 in total revenue.