Sensor Tower: Global usage of the three major dating apps increased 17% year-on-year in January 2022

Despite changes in the way social is calculated over the past two years, dating app usage remains above pre-pandemic levels. According to Sensor Tower, global usage of Tinder, Bumble and Hinge collectively grew 17% in January 2022 compared to 2019.

Tinder has maintained the largest share of the top dating apps in the U.S. for the past five years. The app’s global usage reflects the same trend.

From January 2019 to January 2022, Bumble and Hinge had a fraction of Tinder’s monthly active users (MAUs); however, their user bases also grew during this period.

In January 2019, Bumble's MAU reached about 13% of Tinder's, while Hinge's reached about 3%. Bumble's usage rose 13 percentage points in January 2022, reaching more than a quarter of Tinder's; Hinge's usage rose 9 percentage points to 12%.

Bumble and Hinge

Bumble and Hinge have seen a surge in audience size. In January 2022, Hinge's MAU was more than four times what it was in January 2019; Bumble's MAU grew 96%.

Tinder usage, on the other hand, remained relatively stable over the same period.

New Users

The three dating apps continued to grow in popularity, with a total of 106.4 million first-time installs in 2021. While this was only slightly higher than the 106.2 million installs in 2020, it was up 17% from the 91 million installs in 2019.

Bumble's installations reached approximately 21.6 million in 2021, up 19% from 2020.

Although Hinge's installations grew 50% year-over-year to 8.4 million in 2020, they only grew 2% year-over-year to 8.6 million in 2021.

Tinder's global installations reached approximately 76.2 million times in 2021.

Romance is alive

Popular dating apps are constantly competing for users’ attention and therefore are constantly rolling out new features.