Tinder, the pioneering 2010s dating app that struggled against a subsequent flood of competition, is winning newfound popularity with younger daters thanks to astrology, AI and verification features – but swiping culture continues to drive fatigued Australian singles to curated meet-up events.
Match Group, the global dating behemoth whose brands include Tinder, Hinge, Plenty of Fish and OkCupid, reported first-quarter revenue on Tuesday of $US864 million ($1.19 billion), up 4 per cent from the same period last year, as it boasted of promising figures among its platforms’ users.
It comes as dating apps find themselves fighting on multiple fronts: from bleeding users who have grown burnt-out and frustrated at the quality of matches, to a trend away from online connection towards in-person events and analogue technology; then also Gen Z’s lower rates of sexual activity and dating reluctance.
The troubles for dating apps are laid bare by comparing Match Group’s current market capitalisation of about $US8.8 billion with its peak value of more than $US45 billion in 2021.
In recent years Tinder has been among the apps bleeding users due to so-called “swipe fatigue”, a sense of burnout among singles overwhelmed by endless profiles and underwhelming connections.
Tinder monthly active users fell 7 per cent in March, a slower decline compared with the 10 per cent drop a year ago. New user registrations grew for the first time since 2024, albeit by only 1 per cent. The company also said user retention among Gen Z women in the US increased.
The company said the registration growth signals interest in its new features, such as Astrology Mode – which lets users add their birth details to their profile and view deeper insights into how they might align with a potential match – and face verification, to reduce interactions with bad actors. It follows a controversial move last year to allow users to filter out matches based on height.
On Tuesday, Match Group chief executive Spencer Rascoff said that not only was the company banking on new AI tools and features but that its goal was to become an AI-native company. He said it would slow down hiring to achieve that transformation.
“What is driving the results is a combination of things. More features are resonating and the marketing works in concert with that,” Rascoff told Bloomberg. “People for a decade have thought of Tinder one way but now we are changing that perception as the fun way to safely meet new people,” he said.
Shares in Match Group have gained 18 per cent this year, and beyond early signs of a turnaround for Tinder, one of its sister platforms is providing more hope for investors.
While various apps offer a variety of free, baseline services, singles are increasingly willing to pay for features, particularly on the group’s app Hinge, the company said.
Designed for more intentional dating and marketed as “designed to be deleted”, Hinge continues to be a key earner for Match Group.
Paying users across Match’s platforms decreased 5 per cent in the past quarter from the same period a year earlier to 13.5 million but Hinge’s paying users increased 15 per cent to 2 million.
Hinge delivered 28 per cent year-over-year direct revenue growth, due largely to international expansion and new, AI-powered features. The app also rolled out its face verification feature.
Also on Tuesday, rival dating app Bumble posted first-quarter revenue of $US212 million, above analysts’ estimates. Total paying users dropped 21 per cent to 3.2 million, compared with 4 million a year ago, Reuters reported, as the company’s chief executive Whitney Wolfe Herd also spoke of a push into AI.
Grindr, a dating app for gay men, posted a 28 per cent growth in revenue in 2025 and has reported a more than 5 per cent increase in active users on last year.
However, issues persist for the mainstream apps catering to the heterosexual community. Despite promising new user registration figures for Tinder, the app continues to struggle with losing active users burnt out by online dating, and a cycle of profile overwhelm and a lack of responsiveness from their matches.
While some disaffected daters are turning to AI chatbots to form romantic relationships, matchmakers, while also running clubs for connection, in-person speed-dating events and singles nights, continue to experience a surge in popularity across Australian cities.
Charlotte Vieira, co-founder of Humpday Club, which runs singles events on Wednesdays in Melbourne and Sydney and is also relaunching its curated app, said her start-up’s range of trivia, running meets and racquet sports had proved popular with singles frustrated at the failure of dating app companies to respond to what users actually wanted.
“Tinder was revolutionary when it launched, and for a few years we were riding that sugar high of optionality of all the people who you could connect with,” said Vieira.
Vieira said that despite sign-ups on Tinder rising for the first time in years, the continued disproportionate loss of active users meant that while AI-driven features may be able to draw in new users, the updates weren’t enough on their own.
“People are craving community and in-person experiences, and while the big dating dinosaurs are trying to adapt, ultimately their business models are designed to make money off attention, and that makes it difficult to build connection,” Vieira said.
Izzy Burns heads up Crush Club, which runs singles events in Melbourne. A recent event over two nights sold out with 550 attendees, and had a waitlist of 1500. She plans to expand to Sydney and Adelaide in coming months.
Burns played down Tinder’s optimistic registration figures, suggesting it was instead proof of user dissatisfaction broadly at apps and the phenomenon of cycling through them.
“I can relate to signing up, being on them for a minute, leaving, then re-downloading. A lot of people are frustrated when they’re on the apps,” she said.
Encountering inactive users, which Tinder’s own figures suggest is a problem, makes for poorer experiences for new sign-ups putting in effort to find a date, Burns said.
“People aren’t confident approaching someone at a bar or meeting in person but they don’t want to be chained to the apps, so we see a lot of interest for in-person events,” Burns said.
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Elias Visontay is a National Consumer Affairs Reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
