Q1 2025 Bumble Inc Earnings Call
Hello everybody, and welcome to the Bumble first quarter, 2025, Found your results, conference call. My name is Eliot, it's not be a co-ordinative today.
If you would like to register a question during stage event, please press star one on the telephone keypad.
Wilter Barris: I would like to hand over to Walter Barris, Investor Relations, please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Thank you for joining us to discuss Bumble's first quarter 2025 financial results. With me today are Bumble's Founder and CEO , Whitney Woolford, and Interim CFO , Ron Feeler.
Wilter Barris: Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made on this call today are forward-looking statements.
Wilter Barris: These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and reflect our current expectations based on the beliefs, assumptions, and information currently available to us.
Wilter Barris: Although we believe these expectations are reasonable, we undertake no obligation to revise any statement to reflect changes that occurred after this call.
Wilter Barris: Descriptions of factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are discussed in more detail in state's earnings press release and our periodic filings with the FTC.
Wilter Barris: During the call, we also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures.
Wilter Barris: These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for, or in isolation from our gap results.
With that, I'll turn the call over to any.
Whitney: Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm excited to be back leading Bumble. We're moving fast with a clear and focused strategy. It has been really exciting to see the energy the team has around what we are building and their passion for bringing people together is unmatched.
Whitney: Then do you not hurt from me in depth for quite some time? I want to start with clarity and reflection about both our category and our company.
Whitney: I think it will come as no surprise to hear me say that online dating is at an inflection point.
Whitney: The good news is, we know how we arrived here, and we believe that we know exactly what to do about it. It starts with doubling down on quality and not chasing scale for scale of fate.
Whitney: Let me explain what I mean by that and how we're accelerating efforts to put Bumble back on the path to sustainable growth.
Whitney: Dating apps perform very well when well-intentioned people get quality matches.
Whitney: Have great experiences and meet real quality people. They go on dates, many fall in love. This is precisely what has powers the growth of our company worldwide and created an incredibly valuable business and why people continue to come to us for love.
Whitney: Looking back, the quality of memory experience shifted during the pandemic.
Whitney: Even though we grew fast, it came with a hidden cost. When the world shut down, we couldn't rely on our usual ways of attracting members that fuel high quality organic word of mouth growth, like in person events, campus marketing and targeted out of home effort.
Whitney: We had to shift to rely on performance channels that gave us a lot of new members quickly, but we now know they weren't always the right fit. The lack of relevance to one another drove down the matching success rate.
Whitney: Here is why that matter. People come to Bumble to meet people they actually want to meet. Not see mass volumes of people they're not interested in.
Whitney: dating apps don't work by social networks where more people in content automatically makes the product better, in dating success spreads through effective double-sided matching which is deeply reliant on mutual relevance. This is what leads to successful outcomes.
Whitney: Then members, tell their friends, and healthy growth follows. What we learned is that just adding more profile does not guarantee better matches.
Whitney: In fact, it can lead to the opposite, more mismatches, more fake or low quality profiles and a frustrating experience.
Whitney: As math quality dropped, some members got discouraged, found fewer successful matches and days, and fewer people recommended the app to others.
Whitney: The good news is, we have a clear path to getting back to our roots of strong word of mouth flywheel. The solution for Bumble is simple. Showing members people they want to see, getting them quality matches, quality chats, and closer to love. For online dating and for Bumble, quality is the key to enduring growth. The solution for Bumble is, we have a clear path to getting back to our roots of strong word of mouth flywheel.
Whitney: That's why we are accelerating our efforts to improve our member base and show members a more thoughtful selection of high-quality relevant profile. In pursuit of this goal, we are fast-tracking two transformative and clear actions.
Whitney: First, to improve the member base, we are refreshing and intensifying our efforts to remove thoughts, scammers, and bad intentioned members that have degraded match quality and member trust.
Anuradha Subramanian, Whitney Herd
Better Profile, Lead to Better Matches
Whitney: Second, we are rapidly modernizing our personalized matching algorithm with AI and enhanced machine learning to promote and elevate quality Bumble members to better enable those relevant matches.
Whitney: We are re-establishing the foundation for a return to sustainable growth.
Whitney: To be clear, we have a lot of work ahead for it. [inaudible]
Whitney: before the improved experience drives renewed and enhanced member engagement and re-accelerates growth in a controlled, authentic way.
Whitney: Our efforts to improve the quality of the member base will likely result into your paying members on our platform in the near term. You saw some of this in our first quarter results, and we are now accelerating our efforts.
Whitney: But getting through this process is critical, and we believe it will prove to be the start of the future for Bumble with much stronger and more enduring member first growth.
Whitney: As we do that work, we've also been quickly getting stronger and more efficient [inaudible]
Whitney: Since our return to the CEO role in mid-March, we have taken decisive actions in the business to set us up for success.
Whitney: I'll start with leadership and structure. We are building a world-class team to execute on our vision.
Whitney: We've brought in seasoned and energetic leaders across product, technology, communications, and legal, and are progressing in the search for a permanent CSO to help leads this company forward.
Whitney: One of the things I've been most excited about as I stepped back into the role is how our powerful brand remains a magnet for great talent and people see the potential and opportunity ahead.
Whitney: We are up leveling our processes across the whole company. From the top to the bottom of our organization, we are prioritizing excellence, speed, focus, clarity and accountability.
Next, it's Financial Discipline.
Whitney: One of the first things I did was a thorough review of the entire company.
Whitney: We have already identified 15 million in new near-term savings distributed across operating and cost in the last six weeks, and we expect more.
Whitney: We have also thoughtfully and significantly reduced our marketing spend in line with our near-term strategic focus.
Whitney: We have taken down our marketing budget by 20 million in Q2 with more to come in the balance of this year as we focus on organic marketing strategies to attract the right numbers who want to find success on our platform.
Whitney: Most of this production is spending on non-organic user acquisition channels that don't drive the level of member-based quality we want to build.
Whitney: As we get our memory base closer to where we want it, perfect our modernized algorithm and begin delivering product innovation will turn brand and organic spend back on. But we believe the long term pivot away from performance marketing spend will deliver sustaining benefits over time. [inaudible]
Our third priority is product and technology excellence.
Whitney: We're continuing to innovate across the Bumble platform with new enhanced technology of product experience and prevent.
Whitney: To this point, we've just announced our new CTO, Vivek Sagi, who brings deep consumer tech experience, spanning engineering, product management, and UX.
Whitney: He's a phenomenal addition to the team. He'll push our track at our company forward with world-class talent in modern lean infrastructure, including incorporating AI with urgency to improve our product and make our engineers more efficient.
Whitney: Our March update included the launch of our Discovered tab, which is more likely to lead to matches and good chats for our members by highlighting commonalities.
Whitney: This is just the beginning for the summer. Longer term, we want the summer to be a great area for our members to find like-minded communities and connect with offline groups and events for singles, which will offer the real-life connections we believe our members are craving.
Whitney: Additionally, our Trust and Safety Initiative, including ID verification, reviewable forefend, and share date for gaining traction and proving to be valuable tools and supporting authenticity and safety on our app, which is our main priority.
Whitney: These examples show how we are getting back to our roots and back to basic.
We are operating from a member first mindset again.
Whitney: We are listening closely to what our members want from dating and connection.
Whitney: and that is what we are building. We are facing the fundamentals so that we have a more powerful foundation in place from which to innovate. You will see more evidence of this in our next product moment, which is coming at the end of this summer. [inaudible]
Whitney: We are focused on delivering better and faster matches, more enhancements to our verification and safety tools. It refers to UI and UI.
Whitney: and mechanisms for learning more about what our members value and listening to and asking on member feedbacks of care will also be introducing our coaching house where members can engage with content from expert coaches.
Whitney: with tips on how to succeed in their dating journey. Long-term, this will be both human and AI driven.
Whitney: We are also investing time and attention into Bumble for Friends.
Whitney: will be unveiling a big update as part of our summer launch.
Whitney: Bumble BFS is a great success that we don't talk about enough. With over one million active members, including a strong Gen Z following, we believe Bumble BFS is proving that the world is creating tangible, real life friendship.
Whitney: Importantly, we are also leveraging to me that great technology platform and talent can power this upgraded experience.
Whitney: We have been actively connecting with many of our Bumble BFF members and members of our target audience to understand exactly what they want from the friend finding experience and we plan to deliver on many of those optimizations that are. [inaudible]
Looking ahead, we do not believe we've seen our peak. [inaudible]
Whitney: In fact, we believe Bumble can and will become much bigger over time.
Whitney: It requires an intentional shift in focus back to what made Bumble the leader in our category, offering a healthy and engaged member base where high quality genuine members can thrive in finding connections, relationships and love.
Whitney: Safely, quickly and effectively, in a way that makes them feel good.
Whitney: We have an incredibly strong foundation as we execute, a powerful, global brand, large base of engaged members, experiences that we believe are only going to get better, highly cash-generative business model and strong valid sheets.
Whitney: In other words, we are in the unique position of executing a recess from a position of strength, and as you've heard we say, we are going to be sure to prioritize this strong financial foundation.
Whitney: As we move forward, we aim to keep you informed on our progress with the right tools to measure the results. We'll be judging our success in the near term on the improving health of our member base and the success our active engaged members have on the platform.
Whitney: We'll be sharing more on how we'll be quantifying that progress in the coming quarter. At the same time, we will be de-emphasizing guiding you to paying users.
Whitney: We do not want to degrade the base by overly focusing on short-term payer numbers. Of course, we will continue our financial guidance practice with the near-term focus on quarterly outlook.
Whitney: That's the short term. Let me also touch on the long term. As we execute on our plan, we are very focused on building a sustainable revenue model with a healthy paying member base. We are helping people find love, and that is immensely valuable to our members.
Whitney: We know members will pay for that value. A higher quality experience and member base means we have more to monetize over time.
We understand the steps we're taking are not easy.
Whitney: Make no mistake. We are focused on long-term, member-first sustainable growth. We truly believe that when people feel safe, supported, and matched with intention, everything grows, retention, loyalty, love, and yet, revenue and earnings.
Whitney: I now want to turn to our interim CSO Ron Fjord, provides some details about the prior quarter and to share more details about the past forward form Bumble.
Thank you, Whitney, and good afternoon, everyone.
Whitney: As Whitney has mentioned, we are taking big and important steps with the member experience back at the center of everything we do at Bumble. In time, we expect these steps to renew our organic growth momentum, which we believe will result in a larger and more sustainable Bumble for the long term.
Whitney: I will provide more detail on the financial implications of our path forward but first I'll provide a summary of our first quarter financial results.
Whitney: RQ1 results were largely in line with company guidance. In Q1, total Bumble Inc. revenue was $247 million, including an unfavorable impact from foreign exchange of approximately $6 million.
Whitney: Abbrevenue is $202 million, including a foreign exchange headwind of approximately $4 million.
Whitney: Additionally, total paying users in the quarter were 4 million, and Bumble app paying users for 2.7 million.
Whitney: Thaduap and other revenue was $45 million, including a $2 million foreign exchange headwind during the court.
Sadduh Out and other paying users totaled 1.3 million.
Turning now to expenses
Whitney: Total one gap operating costs for $202 million and re-reported gap net earnings of $20 million.
Whitney: On a non-gaup basis, which excluded stock-based compensation, another non-cash for non-recurring items, operating expenses were $183 million. The year-over-year decline of about 5 to 6% was primarily driven by lower headcount as a result of the restructuring plan executed in 2020-24.
Whitney: Adjust the event down for Q1 with 64 million representing 26% of revenue.
Whitney: We reported strong cash flow of $43 million in Q1, and we ended the quarter with $202 million in cash and cash equipment.
Whitney: We repurchased $29 million worth of shares in the first quarter, and as of today's call, we have $50 million left in our current stock repurchased authorization.
Whitney: Looking ahead, we're working at an accelerated pace on the improvements to our member base that Whitney discussed. As the team works towards these goals, we are also prioritizing strong cash flow and profitability throughout this transition period.
Whitney: While we anticipate short to medium-term headwinds to our top line and top of the funnel metrics, we have also identified areas of ongoing cost savings.
Whitney: In particular, we have identified approximately $50 million of operating cost savings from across the business that we will recognize through the end of the year, and we expect to add to that figure as we complete our evaluation and planning work over the coming week.
Whitney: The savings will begin to take effect in Q2 with the majority of savings occurring in Q3 and Q4.
Whitney: We will also be spending less on brand marketing in Q2 than is typical. So we expect us to come back to normal levels in the second half of the year.
Whitney: All in, we expect marketing reductions will total the approximately $20 million in Q2 with additional performance marketing reductions through your end.
Whitney: We expect to provide more details on our cost efficiency work on our Q2 call in the August .
Bertha Guides for Q2.
Bernadette: We expect total Bumble Inc. revenue between $235 million and $243 million.
representing a year-over-year decrease of 13% to 10% [inaudible]
Bernadette: Excluding foreign exchange and fruits and officials, this translates to a decrease between 12% and 9% [inaudible]
Bernadette: We expect Bumble app revenue to be between $193 million and $199 million, representing a year over your decrease of between 11% and 9%.
Bernadette: Additionally, we estimate adjusted EBITDA in Q2 to be between $79 million and $84 million, representing a margin of approximately 34% at the midpoint of the range.
Bernadette: We are committed to providing you with appropriate color around memory engagement and success that will help you follow and measure our progress. We'll have more to share on that front on our next earnings call.
Bernadette: While we're not providing guidance for full year 2025, as we finalize planning and budgeting and support of the new teams strategic work, we want to provide some thoughts on our planning assumptions for the bouts of the year.
Bernadette: We have expected $12 million revenue had been as a result of our decision to discontinue our operations of fruits and officials.
Bernadette: This impact is expected to be getting Q2 and be roughly evenly distributed through the remainder of the year.
Bernadette: After Q2, we expect our adjusted EVA margin to reflect the operational cost savings we are implementing and the reduction in performance marketing spend more than offset by our plan returns of random organic marketing spend and the near term revenue headman for our member base quality initiatives. [inaudible]
Bernadette: We are moving forward confidently as we improve our member base and drive member success and ultimately reignite sustainable growth and value creation.
Whitney: We appreciate your ongoing support, and I will now hand it back to Whitney to wrap up.
Thanks, Ron.
Speaker Change: The Q2 outlook Ron has shared indicates our focus on driving profitability and cash flow generation as we execute on the priorities I've set out since coming back. We're doing so from a position of financial strength.
Speaker Change: I have full conviction in our renewed strategy and our ability to make the Bumble experience relevant, meaningful and successful for our members.
Speaker Change: I can't remember a time in all of Bumble's years since starting the company that I felt more energized, passionate, and confident than where we are going now. And that is largely because of the clarity and the priorities that we have.
We are already building early execution momentum.
Speaker Change: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press staff all about one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press staff all about two. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Well I'm prepared to ask you a question so you can show your device is unmistied locally.
Speaker Change: Thanks, guys. Good afternoon. It's first with me is if you make these changes then pull back on a performance marketing spend, you know, focused on
Speaker Change: Let's call it fewer, but higher quality users. This change, and I guess what you've seen from the performance channel driven users and how to impact the ecosystem for the past few years.
Speaker Change: Does this change your view on what the addressable market is over time? How much more growth there is to achieve in this segment and the kind of saturation of it. I know you've had views that there's
Speaker Change: Still a lot of room to grow here. I just love your thoughts on that. And then…
Speaker Change: As you're making these changes, maybe just to clarify, improving the ecosystem has been the top priority even over the last couple of years, and so the changes that you're making here, is it a continuation of what you've done, has those efforts not really worked so far, and you need to add another layer to it, or is it kind of just...
Speaker Change: Confirmed to do what you've done so far while you pull back on marketing. Thanks.
Speaker Change: Thanks so much for your question. Really appreciate it. Let me take this in a couple parts. So part one, let's address the high-level strategy here.
Speaker Change: The key to enduring growth, and then I'll get into the town part, is quality.
Speaker Change: Quality, Quality, Quality. And our strategy is really simple. We just have to get back to our roots of what made this great. If you ask yourself, what do people come to Bumble for?
Speaker Change: It's very simple. They come to get high-quality relevant matches in an efficient, safe, and fulfilling way.
Whitney, you scale for scale state. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: So, this is not an effort to necessarily go shrink and become a hyper, you know, exclusive network. This is really about engineering.
Speaker Change: A higher quality experience for all of our members. I'm happy to take you through how we do that, but let's touch on Tam and then let's talk about the last couple of years and why this moment is a hyper acceleration of that. So, Tam.
Speaker Change: The demand for love, I know you've heard me say this, but I cannot overemphasize this enough.
The demand for love is global, robot. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: and it is at an all-time high. I mean, you don't need me to tell you this, but loneliness is the topic of every conversation.
Speaker Change: Christian, people are craving real human connection more than ever, and people are digital first.
Speaker Change: We are not going to go back to meeting people just offline. Now, as I said in my prepared remark, of course, there are offline components here. We want you to come to our product to then get offline on great dates. So we believe the TAM is massive, but what I'm not willing to do.
Speaker Change: You know, in joyful way, one that doesn't stress you out and feel, you know, like you're matching with the bot or a fake person.
Speaker Change: So that's already in play here and not the big part of the strategy. The next piece is let's talk about what you mentioned, that this has been to some degree the strategy for a couple of years. I want to get really clear. You can't do both at once.
Speaker Change: You can't go and keep the performance marketing engine on and try to create a higher quality member base of super high quality profiles. You have to commit and go all in on one or the other.
Speaker Change: For us to continuously dive quarterly to short-term payer numbers that is not the way we accelerate our efforts to a high-quality base.
Speaker Change: So the moment I came back in, I set a very succinct strategy.
Speaker Change: Quality, quality, quality, debt, people, great matches. Get everybody great matches as quick and safely as possible. So, to put a pin in all of that.
Speaker Change: Huge Tam, we got to shrink a little bit before we grow, there's still huge growth around the world and we are going to go after it aggressively once the product is ready.
and the quality control of our employees.
Speaker Change: Thing Two, this is not just doing what we were doing the last two years. I am back. I'm so focused on this and we are going to get this right but we got to go all in. This is our whole, whole, whole focus and clear priority. And so I hope that summarizes the mix of the questions for you.
Speaker Change: We now turn to Shweta Khajuria with Wolf Research. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Shweta Kajaria: Okay, thank you. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. Let me try two, please.
Shweta Kajaria: Whitney, thanks for that color. I guess my follow up is what are some of the key metrics?
Shweta Kajaria: as you go through this change and the process that you are measuring that will show success in your view. So if you could please point to maybe two or three measurable metrics that you are tracking to show success. And then second is
Speaker Change: Any update on the CFO search and where you are in terms of timing and the process, thanks a lot.
and it's great to chat with you again.
Speaker Change: So I'll take the second one first. We are making a lot of progress on the CFO search. You have to say extremely grateful we've got Ron in the C right now, such next week has been a great partner. And he is here until we place that role, but we are making a lot of progress and I'm super excited for the type of leader we're looking for. So so more to come there as soon as we have a formal update, but I think this is also a nice moment to emphasize the strength of the talent that we have brought.
Bush, the last several weeks. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: So our bench now with the exception of a CFO is locked. I mean, we've got all stars in the seats, so I'm feeling really proud of that. We've made an announcement today. You can go double-click on that.
Okay, the second question.
Speaker Change: But if you think about this, just more high level, you know, I've just kind of outlined this, the metrics that matter here are the quality of the engagement that people have on our product. If you come to our app,
Speaker Change: and you have a very good joyous, seamless experience. You get great matches and you have great shots.
Speaker Change: You're going to retain people in a way that is really both great for the success rate.
Speaker Change: But it also is what drives that word of mouth, and that is how we got here. I have taken a very organic approach for the first several years of business and I know how to do this. So it's really about getting back to those key inputs that matter the most. This is what drives that word of mouth, and that is what drives that word of mouth, and that is how we got here.
Speaker Change: Coming, having a good experience using the product in a way that is fulfilling and not dead-ended, getting great matches that lead to great chess, then hopefully lead to great dates, leads to love stories, and that's why when I go out in public, I need fumble babies everywhere I go, and it's magical, so we've got to just get back to those inputs that count the most, and we will keep you posted on a formal basis on how we are going to guide to that in the future.
Eric Sheridan: We now turn to Eric Sheridan with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Eric Sheridan: Thanks so much for taking the question. I wanted to talk about the topic around AI broadly with me both inside the organization and as an external facing force. Can you talk a little bit about some of the investments you're making across the organization with respect to AI? How to think about productivity and efficiency gains? And how do you think the dating experience might change as a result of things like personalization or customization that could be an output of AI? Thank you.
Eric Sheridan: Four categories. Let's talk about how we are leveraging AI from a safety and verification standpoint.
Eric Sheridan: So, as I've been outlining both of these anthems, but throughout the prepared remarks.
Eric Sheridan: Grace Matches are a derivative of great profiles. Great profiles are an output of verified, real, trusted, accountable profile.
Eric Sheridan: So the power of the AI sophisticated tooling that we can now...
Eric Sheridan: Access, further even on top of the layers of this that we've been doing for years.
Eric Sheridan: Can supercharge verification and safety efforts in such a way that can really accelerate that for us.
Eric Sheridan: At a speed that is a lot more robust than what we've had in the past to operate off of. So this should really enhance the overall quality and safety and accountability of the member base. So that's the same one. Now let's look at how it enhances the...
Speaker Change: Quote, let's say what I've been saying to everyone on the team is, we use AI to make love more human.
Speaker Change: End quote, right? So we are not trying to replace love with an AI bot. We are trying to leverage AI to help make leaders have better human dating experiences. What do I mean by that?
Speaker Change: Most people have no idea how to build a dating profile. I have met some of the most amazing singles and when I look at their profile, I am shocked.
Speaker Change: that they could not express how great they were in a simple profile. So, leveraging AI to coach them through that experience is going to have a huge uplift.
Speaker Change: on how we can help people show up better and really move that member base into a higher quality profile base, which then leads to better matches, better chats, the whole flywheel kicks in.
Speaker Change: So coaching, as we talked about, that will be powered by both humans and AI. We want you to know how to talk to each other. We want you to know how to write your bio. We want you to know how to show up, how do you know what you value, how do you know who you want to connect with. So AI is a huge accelerant and a huge accelerator to the dating experience to make you really understand how to get the most out of this experience. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: Okay, the third category is the matching algorithm. This is unbelievable. AI has always been, I mean, let's call it machine learning, has always been the foundation of how we match you.
Speaker Change: But you cannot believe how fast AI is moving when it comes to helping be a strong personal predictor of success on matches.
Speaker Change: So we are hard at work and Zivek are new CTOs joining us just in a couple weeks. This is the top focus of ours.
Speaker Change: How do we accelerate our AI-powered machine learning and our super personalized algorithm?
Speaker Change: to make sure that people get on Bumble and they feel like it's the smartest matchmaker in the world. You get on low effort, you've been guided to a great profile, and now boom, just like magic, that algorithm has delivered you high quality matches, high quality chats.
Speaker Change: The innovation of this category and particularly of our business lies in the power of the matching algorithm. We are here to match people. So the better we get at that, the better the business gets, and we are laser focused on that. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: The last part of our approach to AI is efficiency. I think you have seen that from the moment I step back in the store, I got so, so in the weeds.
Speaker Change: Top to bottom, bottom to top, side to side. I win through every detail of this company.
Speaker Change: Every team, every priority, every project, every dollar, and if those dollars and those projects did not ladder up to the priorities that I just outlined to you.
Speaker Change: They went. And that's why we just laid out to you that there's going to be more to come. We are so focused. We are a laser focused machine now. And AI is going to be an accelerator for up here.
Speaker Change: where we can lean into AI to make us more efficient. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: to make our work better, to make our work faster. So you can really, I hope you can see how we are leveraging the best AI has to offer while prioritizing the foundation of our mission in commitment to safe, healthy offline life.
Speaker Change: We now turn to Nathan Feather with Morgan Stanley . Your line is open, please go ahead.
Nathan Feather: Hey everyone, thanks so much for the question. You know, first. You know, first.
Speaker Change: I just want to go back a bit of past few years. I just want to check your take on what you think led the product.
Speaker Change: to DVA from the high-quality matches that were really the foundation for Bumble's growth. And then kind of following up on that last question, as AI really helps the matchmaking algorithm get better and better, how do you think about the opportunity to create new engagement methods that really emphasize quality and duration rather than quantity? Thank you.
Speaker Change: Thanks for the questions, both great questions. Let's actually start at the second part of that. So you know I'm going to ask everybody on this call a simple question.
Speaker Change: Everyone has really come down on the swipe in the media and in the public but but I want you to think about it a little bit differently.
Speaker Change: through 50 people, and 90% of those people were people you wanted to meet. Wow, amazing human, great profile. You have so much in common with all of these people. And then imagine you got super high math rates and chat rates, and a few great dates.
Speaker Change: Out of that kind of volume of people you went through, you would probably come out of it saying, wow, I love swiping. Swiping is unbelievable.
The modalities to get to great chats matter less.
then the actual people and profiles we surface to you.
Speaker Change: So it's not just about showing you fewer people. It's about showing you more relevant, personalized profiles.
And this is the future of digital matchmaking.
Speaker Change: It is our job right now and for the long term to bring you the best people for you.
Speaker Change: Why that person is extraordinary, and why you should give them a chance.
Speaker Change: This was early, early innings of discover where we started to surface [inaudible]
Speaker Change: The reason why you should connect with someone in a more curated capacity. So this is a huge focus of our personalized matchmaking algorithm.
Speaker Change: and the early innings of our dating coaching that we talked about in the Prepared Remark. We want you to see great people.
Speaker Change: In great simple ways, efficient ways, but this is not about more features. Now, let's go to your first question because they intersect.
There has been this mindset. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: that has been pervasive in the dating industry that more features people better outcomes.
Speaker Change: And let's just launch something new, launch something new, but some of the greatest consumer products have not changed all that much in the last decade, if you think about it. You know, you get on some of these platforms, they don't seem all that different, but the algorithm.
Speaker Change: It's so sophisticated. You see what you want to see. You get the experience you want to get.
You look at Netflix, the interface is not all that different, but the content is extraordinary, and it's improved, and it's modernized.
Speaker Change: So that is what we're focused on right now. And certainly not saying that you'll never see product updates out of us, but right now quality is the name of the game. And getting you matches in a safe, effective, efficient way so you can find love is what we are here to do and that's what I'm committing to delivering.
Robert, thank you.
Speaker Change: We now turn to Andrew Marok with Ravenchains. Your line is open, please go ahead.
[inaudible]
Speaker Change: Thanks for taking my question, just one for me please. I don't mean to belabor the topic of quality here, but it is just an extremely fascinating topic.
Signing off.
Speaker Change: You're very clear that you're looking to eliminate bots, fake users, anti-social behavior, etc.
Speaker Change: But is there anything else to that equation that you're looking to engineer like you were talking about earlier? Is the Bumble of the Future going to be a place maybe to find the whole gamut of human relationships? Or is there the intention to point Bumble and its brand to maybe a certain subdivision of the dating or relationship market? Thank you.
Speaker Change: Great question. Thank you. So again, let's talk about quality. I think I would love for you to think about it in three parts. So part one is really.
Bing Yo,
Extremely...
Speaker Change: You know, are off terms of conditions, they're not treating people well, they are a risk to our member base, or they're just scammers or spammers. Okay, they gotta go. So we're removing those profiles. There is the vast majority in the middle of good people.
Speaker Change: with not great profiles. And what do I mean by that? They might have one photo up from 2016. It's blurry and they're wearing sunglasses. No one is going to want to mask with that person. But if you peel the profile away from the person, it could be your dream person.
Bluff, More Photos, More Contact,
More Information.
More Quality Signal Capturing.
Speaker Change: Can supercharge how we deliver you the people you see so to a prior question you don't have to go through hundreds of people to get to the one. We want you to see people that work for you and are relevant for you. Quality is top to bottom here.
Speaker Change: But when you think about the third category, the third category are the folks that are already shining.
Speaker Change: This is not a rebuild, this is just a reorganization of quality.
Speaker Change: and then that flywheel of what you used to hear about Bumblework. Every other person you knew was meeting on Bumble, that magic turns back on again. So, that's kind of the approached quality.
Speaker Change: Dan Folk, the most important piece there is verification. You know, we are not scared and I want to say this again. We are not scared.
Speaker Change: of losing members that are unwilling to verify themselves. You should be a verified person to be here.
Speaker Change: Show us your selfie verification. Put in an ID. There's going to be a lot of mechanisms to better verify and buy links.
Speaker Change: This is the number one ask for women. They want to know that who they're meeting on the other end is who they say they are.
Speaker Change: So, when you talk about what a bum will be used for this one type of thing.
Speaker Change: Listen, I see us as the love company. I want people to find love. If you're looking for the love of your life break, you can find it here. If you're looking for a friend, you can find it here. Bumble has a brand that is not exclusive to a one-stop shop. It's not a casual relationship company. It's not a marriage matrimony company.
Speaker Change: This is about healthy, safe quality connections, and that's what we're committed to. Thank you very much.
Speaker Change: We now turn to Benjamin Black with Deutsche Bank. The line is open, please go ahead.
Benjamin Black: Great, thank you, thank you for that, and thank you for taking my question. I had to follow up on- [inaudible]
Benjamin Black: An AI, I mean, it sounds like AI discovery could be a... [inaudible]
You know, I'd assume that...
Speaker Change: and some of the instructions for these tools already exist today. But, you know, isn't data the big differentiating factor, you know, data on what folks are looking for, what characteristics are drawn to those kind of things. So, I guess, I guess the question here is, you know, what are you doing to get more data insights from your user base to ultimately have a bit more of a differentiated offering? Thank you. Thank you.
That's a great question. Thanks for asking.
Speaker Change: So we left for the sake of the answer, let's call it signal.
Speaker Change: Okay, instead of data. So, signals are so critical because signals are double-fighted. They're both what you tell us about yourself and how you choose to express yourself so that the call of the matchmaker on the other end of the screen which is Bumble will get to know you and fully understand you what you're looking for, what you need in love, what you need from relationships.
Speaker Change: and then we need signals from other people, so every time you cast a vote...
All in somebody in the system, we can start...
Speaker Change: Actively understanding the signals that you're telling us matter to you most about people. So this is—
Speaker Change: A huge part of our summer launch is building more UI and UX customer focused.
Speaker Change: Forward Looking, Signal Capturing, Mechanisms, so instead of just wiping right or left on an entire profile, we are going to give you the capacity.
Speaker Change: to indicate specifically what it is you liked about that profile.
Did you laugh at something that they had? [inaudible]
Speaker Change: Did something make you feel sentimental? Did, you know, a picture they posted of them on a hike on some mountain we realized, wow, we could go climbing together and I love that. You know, there's going to be so many in-depth ways to capture what matters most to you as a member on our platform, and that is precisely...
What powers the AI algorithm to be? [inaudible]
Personalized,
Speaker Change: and to be effective. So, you're spot on. This is a huge focus of ours. I'm spending several hours a day with tech and product teams, making sure that this is going to be actioned appropriately and in a way that is deeply powerful to our numbers.
Very helpful. Thanks very much, Whitney. Thank you very much.
Cherryl Valenzuela, Unknown Executive, Cherryl Valenzuela, Anuradha Subramanian, Whitney Herd
Speaker Change: As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now.
Speaker Change: We now turn to John Blackledge with TD Cohen. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Speaker Change: Everyone, thanks for the question. It's Logan on for John . We have a couple questions on international markets.
Speaker Change: Maybe firstly, are you seeing different user behavior or quality of user ecosystems in international markets versus the US and North America? Said definitely are more emerging international markets facing the same challenges that developed in the US ecosystem.
Speaker Change: and then maybe looking forward, what are some regions of focus or maybe big opportunities for the international booth in 2025?
Thanks.
and Cine, that's a huge opportunity for us.
Is Love.
You know, so many industries looks...
Super-different from one-
Speaker Change: Culture to the next, but love is this one universal need, and this one universal language, which is why...
Speaker Change: Our data looks almost identical from one country to another, which is really, really powerful. So let me unpack this for a moment.
Speaker Change: What we are seeing, and I want to state that I can speak to this very personally. When I decided to come back into this role, there was a gap of a few weeks. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: I spent my day getting really close to customers around the world, to members around the world, I did deep research on what is the feedback, what are the pain points?
Speaker Change: from the United States to France to the differences in Latin and our Asian markets. And you won't believe this. The complaints are almost identical. We're not getting the matches we want to get. We see fakes and bots.
Speaker Change: We feel like the people on the other end aren't who they say they are. We feel like the premium paying offerings aren't giving us value in return. Now, these came through in different languages.
But they were the same member issued.
Speaker Change: People want fulfilling matches. People want to go on great dates. People want to feel safe.
Speaker Change: So our work ahead of us, and the way we're thinking about this is we're not going to go waste money and just pour money into random markets to create artificial short-term growth.
Speaker Change: We're going to reset this product and we're going to solve those problems. Talk to bottom. We're going to chip away at members issues and make this right. We're going to make this product something that people around the world don't just like, don't just love, but need, again.
and so once that job is...
Speaker Change: You know, well underway, which we're making huge progress on every day.
Speaker Change: Then we're going to go deep into these markets again, and you can bet that we are going to turn on that brand magic at scale, and we are going to do this right. We are going to light up the globe with Bumble in a way that gets people great matches, the delivers value, makes them feel excited and makes them fall in love with our company again. [inaudible]
Speaker Change: So, when we talk about regions and territories, you know, the whole world is on our map, but we're not going anywhere and doing anything until the product solves for those problems members are facing.
Speaker Change: So what I want to put a pin-in is that I would not expect us to go chase growth around the world between now and end of year because we want to do this thoughtfully and strategically. 2026 is going to be massive for us in terms of focus with our international efforts.
Speaker Change: Ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions, so this concludes our Q&A and today's conference call. We'd like to thank Fior participation.