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Online Dating Services See Slump in Many Ways

Marketdata Enterprises Inc., an online business market research firm, has released a new 232-page report entitled: The U.S. Dating Services Market. The study presents in-depth status reports and analyses of independent matchmakers, dating Web sites, chains and franchises, radio datelines, print personal ads, and singles publications. The study estimates industry revenues, trends, and competitor profiles from 1991 to 2008 Forecast. There are 90 million singles in America, and online personals Web sites such as Match, Yahoo! Personals and eHarmony have brought matchmaking into the mainstream since 2001.

"The introduction or dating services market is growing only 3.7 percent per year in the U.S., but not all segments of the market are faring equally well. The industry is basically self-regulated. This has turned into a global business, branching beyond the United States. The U.S. is still the largest market, but it?s saturated and the untapped potential appears to be Europe, as well as ethnic and hobby-based niche markets," according to Marketdata`s Research Director, John LaRosa.

The world is now seeing the first wave of divorces of people that found their "soulmates" online, and consumers are obviously not always happy with the accuracy of online profiles. State lawmakers are not happy either. There are bills proposed or pending in IL, TX, FL and VA, to require dating services to state whether they perform background checks. This has become a controversial battle. The novelty of online dating has worn off and revenue growth for the 850+ websites operating has slowed drastically?to only 4.5 percent last year, versus 47 percent in 2003.