Technology
An Army of Swipers: Dating in the Modern Age
Widespread cultural shifts from generation to generation are nothing new.
The digital era has helped fuel a surge in mobile and online dating among younger, tech-savvy generations. In fact, almost half of Americans today between the ages of 18 and 29 years old report having used a dating site or app to find a partner.
For the millions of people around the world diving into the world of digital dating, there are dozens of online dating platforms to choose from. Increasingly though, many of these brands are controlled by a single company.
A Match Made In Heaven
Forget traditional face-to-face interactions—online dating has emerged as the most popular way couples are meeting today. Though the volume of users is increasingly large, the number of companies in the space continues to narrow.
The largest in this space, Match Group, has gone all-in on online dating, acquiring some 20 companies throughout its brief history. As a result, Match Group now has an impressive 45 dating services in its growing roster.
Taking a familiar page out of the Big Tech playbook, Match Group’s big bet has so far paid off.
They’ve managed to execute on an asset-light, software-based subscription model that results in plenty of recurring revenue. This strategy has also led to operating margins that rival those of Big Tech companies like Facebook or Microsoft.
The result? Since their 2015 IPO, Match Group’s stock is up 600%, reaching a market capitalization of $25 billion, eclipsing many other well-known household names.
Wall Street Swipes Right
While Match Group does frequently boast about its diverse set of dating platforms, much of the success boils down to a few moving parts. One big part in particular, is Tinder and its impressive userbase of 59 million people.
Tinder’s “army of swipers” continues to grow. If the app’s userbase were a country, it would rank 25th in the world. Alternatively, imagine if every citizen of Canada, Jamaica, Ireland, Sweden, and Albania combined decided to pop open their app store and download Tinder at the same time.
Tinder now has upwards of 6 million paid subscribers, charging a subscription fee around $20 per month. These revenues continue to form a large piece of the overall equation.
How important is Tinder for Match? In their investor presentations, they provide separate data on Tinder while labeling all other apps under the “All Other Brands” category.
In recent times, Match Group has commented that they see “traditional dating” as their biggest competitor. Socio-cultural, demographic, and tech trends seem to suggest mobile online dating is not just a fad, but a concrete and dominant means through which people connect.
User growth figures have not shown weakness either. Both Millennials and Gen Z make up the bulk of Match Group’s userbase—and both generations are comfortable with digitalization as well as delaying life milestones such as marriage. This may suggest their layover in the so-called “dating period” will be lengthy—good news for giants like Match Group.
Technology
Visualizing AI Patents by Country
See which countries have been granted the most AI patents each year, from 2012 to 2022.
Visualizing AI Patents by Country
This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
This infographic shows the number of AI-related patents granted each year from 2010 to 2022 (latest data available). These figures come from the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), accessed via Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index Report.
From this data, we can see that China first overtook the U.S. in 2013. Since then, the country has seen enormous growth in the number of AI patents granted each year.
Year | China | EU and UK | U.S. | RoW | Global Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 307 | 137 | 984 | 571 | 1,999 |
2011 | 516 | 129 | 980 | 581 | 2,206 |
2012 | 926 | 112 | 950 | 660 | 2,648 |
2013 | 1,035 | 91 | 970 | 627 | 2,723 |
2014 | 1,278 | 97 | 1,078 | 667 | 3,120 |
2015 | 1,721 | 110 | 1,135 | 539 | 3,505 |
2016 | 1,621 | 128 | 1,298 | 714 | 3,761 |
2017 | 2,428 | 144 | 1,489 | 1,075 | 5,136 |
2018 | 4,741 | 155 | 1,674 | 1,574 | 8,144 |
2019 | 9,530 | 322 | 3,211 | 2,720 | 15,783 |
2020 | 13,071 | 406 | 5,441 | 4,455 | 23,373 |
2021 | 21,907 | 623 | 8,219 | 7,519 | 38,268 |
2022 | 35,315 | 1,173 | 12,077 | 13,699 | 62,264 |
In 2022, China was granted more patents than every other country combined.
While this suggests that the country is very active in researching the field of artificial intelligence, it doesn’t necessarily mean that China is the farthest in terms of capability.
Key Facts About AI Patents
According to CSET, AI patents relate to mathematical relationships and algorithms, which are considered abstract ideas under patent law. They can also have different meaning, depending on where they are filed.
In the U.S., AI patenting is concentrated amongst large companies including IBM, Microsoft, and Google. On the other hand, AI patenting in China is more distributed across government organizations, universities, and tech firms (e.g. Tencent).
In terms of focus area, China’s patents are typically related to computer vision, a field of AI that enables computers and systems to interpret visual data and inputs. Meanwhile America’s efforts are more evenly distributed across research fields.
Learn More About AI From Visual Capitalist
If you want to see more data visualizations on artificial intelligence, check out this graphic that shows which job departments will be impacted by AI the most.
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