Dating Site Jiayuan Has 5.5 Million Active Users, 1.2 Million Paying Users

Chinese largest dating site Jiayuan.com (NASDAQ: DATE) has been through high and low this year. It went IPO in May but then three months later, found itself under the scrutiny of the media as it was labeled as a “one night stand site.”

Jiayuan’s lack of real name policy is causing it trouble as prostitutes or other crooks make use of the system to gain business leads (that’s pretty 2.0). But then again, I understand it is hard to input your real name on dating sites — it’s just uncomfortable to do so…

Jiayuan’s business model is straightforward. Like many other dating sites, it has options for users to upgrade to pro accounts which allow people to send messages to other users. Users can also pay for better search ranking (for the despos) and buy virtual gifts to impress the other party. Apart for the online business, it also organizes events and provides VIP match-making services.

Jiayuan is making quite a good sum of money out of it. Its net revenue (unaudited) for this quarter hit $14.3 million which is 84.5 percent higher year-on year, and 9.1 percent higher then the last quarter. Jiayuan claims to have over 50 million registered users. But most of them are probably just checking out hot girls and guys and then leaving the account to collect dust.

The number of average monthly active users accounts for Q3 2011 is about 5.56 million. Out of which, 1.25 million are paying customers. I must say it’s pretty cool of Jiayuan to reveal its number of active users, rather than just registered users. We wish Sina, Tencent, and Netease Weibo would do the same.

Besides charging for pro accounts and higher search ranking, Jiayuan also runs Xique.com, a one-stop e-commerce store for wedding couples.

Jiayuan was founded in 2003 by Rose Gong back in her college days, as she was inspired by high-flyer friends who were too busy and didn’t have the time to find their true love.

Eight years have passed and Jiayuan has surely connected a lot of boys and girls into couples. But ironically, Gong herself is still unmarried – probably far too busy busy building her online dating empire.