Business Maverick

Business Maverick

Bumble Adds Users, Makes Profit, But Gives Cautious Outlook

The website home screen for Bumble is displayed on a smartphone in an arranged photograph taken in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., on Friday, October 9, 2020. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg

Bumble Inc., the dating app that gives women the first move, added new users in the first quarter and reported a jump in revenue, but remained cautious about how fast people will return to in-person socializing.

“It’s still unpredictable,” Chief Financial Officer Anu Subramanian said on a call with analysts after reporting results. “There isn’t always a perfect correlation between when a market opens up and when people actually start engaging actively in the dating ecosystem.” The shares fell about 1% in late trading, after closing at $47.24 Wednesday in New York.

Sales rose 43% from the same period a year earlier to $171 million, beating the average analyst estimate and the company’s own prediction made in March. Total paying users increased 30% to 2.8 million, with an average revenue per user of $19.99, a more than $2 increase over last year, Bumble said Wednesday in a statement.

The Austin-based company is predicting sales of $175 million to $178 million in the current quarter, a range higher than the average analyst’s forecast.

“Investors may have been looking for a stronger raise to the outlook given the solid performance in the quarter, particularly with more reopenings slated for the second half of the year,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Martino.

Bumble, which raised $2.15 billion in its public stock offering in February, was launched in 2014 by founder and Chief Executive Officer Whitney Wolfe Herd as a way to change the dynamics of dating for women. It has subsequently added features, such as Bumble BFF and Bumble Biz, that introduce new friends and business contacts, respectively. Bumble and rival Match Group Inc. have had to adapt and innovate during the pandemic, coming up with new ways to keep people engaged online and finding relationships over video and chat while restaurants, bars and other social venues were locked down.

Now with more people vaccinated and cities opening up, Bumble will be looking to keep users engaged both on-and-offline. It’s planning to open a wine bar in New York this summer, Wolfe Herd said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal Tuesday.

Making Buzz

Wolf Herd said aside from dating, the friendship sphere will be “the next social growth horizon.” Bumble will be increasing spending on maketing to capture “pent up demand” as economic and health conditions improve across regions.

The company touted strong gains in international markets and significant traction in its Bumble BFF product which saw engagement grow 44% for women and 83% for men.

Bumble’s women-centered approach has been popular with female users especially as the company makes efforts to prioritize safety and curb unsolicited messaging through advanced reporting features and an anti-body-shaming policy. The company recently hired Uber Technologies Inc.’s head of women’s safety and inclusion Rachel Haas to further safety initiatives at Bumble.

The company’s namesake app increased sales by 61% in the first quarter as the pandemic began to wane in North America, its primary market. Badoo, which is focused on Europe, posted an 18% increase in revenue.

Bumble also swung to a profit in the first quarter, reporting $323.4 million, or $1.69 a share.

The stock has dropped about 40% from its peak on Feb. 16 and is now about 10% above its $43 offering price.

Gallery

Comments - Please in order to comment.

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options