The owners of the largest domestic dating site Dating Central Europe Zrt. (DACE), CEO Péter Weiler and investor Russmedia Equity Partners, are expanding abroad with the acquisition of Mötesplatsen (“Meeting Place”), a premium dating site based in Sweden and Norway. The company aims to create a European network, and an important step in this direction is to buy platforms like the current one in the future.
By operating the Hungarian Randivonal (“Dating Line”) and Mötesplatsen in the European dating market, the DACE will now be present in six countries, with more than HUF 2.5 billion in consolidated revenue.
According to Péter Weiler, online dating can be divided into two groups: “fast dating,” or quick dating apps, such as Tinder, where a user can quickly decide if someone is a good match and swipe to the right. Randivonal, on the other hand, is more of a “slow dating” site, which requires a slower, more deliberate approach from the user.
Dating Central Europe Zrt. also took this into account when expanding and finding the dating company owned by Schibsted, Mötesplatsen, which is also present in the Swedish and Norwegian markets.
As local heroes, we have taken the hits well, we have come up with a model that can work in this segment of the dating market for the longterm, with demand moving towards premium services,”
said Weiler, referring for example, to Facebook, which already has its own dating service.
They are trying to get in touch with as many of these “local heroes” in Europe as possible, as their goal is to create a large network. They, however, have no plans to create a common database as their service can operate strongly at a local level, so this will be maintained in the future.
People have a different attitude to online dating. This is because they have been able to get back to life after quarantine and are less reliant on online solutions. Online dating is never a substitute for offline dating, nor is it intended to replace one, but it facilitates and accelerates dating- there are many things that can be picked up online that can help people decide whether they want to continue dating in person,”
Weiler said. Last year was a record year in terms of traffic, and the growth is continuing this year, despite people not having to be in quarantine.
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