China’s most popular dating website, Jiayuan.com, is set to IPO tomorrow. It’s a free service, but users can opt for paid accounts if they want access to premium services. And while none of us here at Penn Olson can claim to have extensively used this site for dating (our respective significant others would likely not be pleased) we thought a quick overview of the basic site functions would be illuminating.
When browsing for potential partners, Jiayuan’s search functions are very much like match.com, allowing you to specify the sex, age range, and location that you’re looking for (see below). There’s also an online chat area, a place to make friends, and even a marriage portal. Jiayuan also holds offline events and offers VIP services, which accounted for 15.7% of its net revenue from last year.
As of March 31, 2011, Jiayuan recorded 40.2 million registered users with 4.7 million active users in the first three months of 2011, according to its latest filing. In contrast, Match.com has 21 million active users according to Google Ad Planner. Match.com was named by Guinness Book of World Records as the largest dating site in the world in 2004. Back then, it only had about 15 million members.
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Jiayuan’s pricing strategy differs slightly from its competitors. Instead of a monthly subscription payment, users are allowed to access its database at no cost. This model encourages users to explore and research its database intensively, thereby creating more engagement and match-up opportunities. In a nutshell, Jiayuan only charges when results are delivered.
China’s online dating market is projected by iResearch to grow from RMB487 million in 2010 to RMB1.9 billion in 2015, representing a 31.3% compound annual growth rate for the online dating market. That significantly outpaces the 3.4% compound annual growth rate for the online dating market in the United States during the same period as projected by IBISWorld.
Jiayuan certainly has lots more room to grow among China’s huge population of young netizens. It will be interesting to see how investors respond to the offering tomorrow.
For even more information on Jiayuan, check out the excellent set of slides published just now by iChinaStock.
Data from: ipo.nasdaq.com
[Written with contributions from Willis Wee]
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