Brief:

• Tinder, the mobile dating app with 50 million users worldwide, overtook Netflix, Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Gardenscapes and Pokemon Go to become the highest-grossing mobile application in Apple’s App Store after the global rollout of Tinder Gold last week. The premium service costs $14.99 a month and lets users speed up matchmaking by seeing who swiped on their profile page, according to Business Insider.

• The dating app, which is owned by a Match Group subsidiary of IAC/InterActiveCorp, has been in the top 15 of highest-grossing apps this year because of its Tinder Plus service that costs $9.99 a month, according to data from researcher App Annie. Tinder Plus, introduced in 2015, let users view people in other locations and undo accidental swipes of people they liked.

• Tinder in June announced the launch of a test version of Tinder Gold in Canada, U.K., Mexico and Germany before a global rollout that included the U.S. The app also sells advertising space in user feeds.

Insight:

Game have long been the most profitable mobile apps, but Netflix was the top earning app in Q2, underscoring how mobile consumption of video content is growing. Tinder's more recent ascent suggests that consumers, as they spend more time in their favorite apps, are willing to spend money for access to exclusive content and features. 

The biggest challenge for dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Happn, Taffy and OKCupid is holding onto subscribers who presumably cancel the service after finding a long-term partner and getting off the dating treadmill. That means dating apps like Tinder need to monetize an audience as much as they can before losing them as they age.

The advantage that dating apps have is the abundance of personal information they collect on their users from their Facebook profiles that are used to authenticate real people. Dating apps are also more popular among younger demographic groups that marketers want to reach, especially for cars, clothing, restaurants, technology and entertainment.

Tinder’s rise to the top of the sales charts is likely to push competitive services to add similar features to appeal to people who want to speed up the dating process. While Tinder Gold is only available for Apple’s iOS, an Android version is coming in the next few weeks, which should expand Tinder’s audience even further.