Friday Nov.06, 2020

🔥 Tinder's flirtiest quarter

"_What about Hinge? Have you tried Hinge?_"
"_What about Hinge? Have you tried Hinge?_"

Hey Snackers,

Something to be proud of: 160M Americans (or ~67% of eligible voters) cast ballots in 2020, the most voters in a US presidential election ever and the highest turnout in 120 years — and all during a pandemic.

Markets jumped yesterday since investors see divided government as a positive for Big Tech — meanwhile, bitcoin rallied past $15K.

Date

Tinder-owner Match gets high on pandemic loneliness and remote romance

Swipe Night is the new Date Night... Forget a five-course meal at Catch — the biggest date nights this summer were happening on Tinder. Match Group (aka: the Godfather of online dating) grew sales 18% last quarter as social distancing turned into social swiping.

  • Average subscribers jumped 12% to nearly 11M, as the possibility of meet-cutes vanished. People shelled out more $$$ for premium swipey perks.
  • Tinder's sales grew 15% thanks to Tinder Premium and virtual events like Swipe Night, which reeled in 15M viewers and record engagement.
  • As the flirtiest of all stocks, Match is getting popular— shares are up 60% in 2020. But Tinder isn't its only asset...

Tell me about yourself... Over half of Match's sales come from Tinder, but non-Tinder brands saw the biggest growth last quarter. The shining star was Hinge, which more than tripled sales from last year and nearly 2X'd downloads. Before Match invested in 2018, Hinge downloads were dropping. Since Match took Hinge under its Cupid wings, downloads have consistently grown. Clever marketing campaigns like "Designed to Be Deleted" were key to that.

The focus is variety... To successfully penetrate the TAM (total addressable market) of singles around the globe, Match is going both broad and narrow. It's targeting specific markets with “demographic dating apps” like Chispa for Latinos/Latinas and BLK for Black singles. Given their success, it followed on with Upward for Christian singles. With variety, Match can attract users who want a more tailored experience (or don't like the sound of Tinder).

Switch

Nintendo levels up on Animal Crossing hype, but now the Console Wars are here

Bank of Nook just got a fat deposit... Nintendo released its financials for the six months ended September 30th, and things are looking super good for old Mario.

  • Profit more than tripled as Nintendo sold 14M+ copies of hit game Animal Crossing: New Horizons — apparently, fictional island utopias fare well during pandemics.
  • Sales jumped 73% as Animal Crossing and Mario drove big software and hardware sales. Nintendo sold nearly 7M Switch consoles in just the last 3-month quarter.

Cool hardware needs cool software... to be worth anything. The Switch has been around for almost four years, but the Animal Crossing frenzy turbocharged sales. Still, there are two Bowsers that could put a damper in Nintendo's 2020 glory...

  • Console Wars: Next week, two long-awaited consoles are dropping (on the same day): Sony's PS5 and Microsoft's Xbox Series X. Switch will get some fresh hot competition.
  • Cloud Gaming: Games that you can play with just a laptop and WiFi are a threat to Nintendo. Sony has Playstation Now, Google has Stadia, and Microsoft has its "Netflix for games." Even Facebook and Amazon offer cloud gaming.

Nintendo is family-friendly... It's the Apple MacBook to Microsoft's PS5 "PC." It's winning with wholesome, fun-for-all games like Animal Crossing and Super Mario Origami King — not Assassin's Creed and GTA. Since its Game Boy days, Nintendo has built a rep as the easy-to-use, less-hardcore gaming option. This mainstream appeal gives it a leg up over competitors.

What else we’re Snackin’

  • Sweat: Peloton's quarterly sales more than tripled from last year because Equinox is still closed and Hayden still needs 6 am spin.
  • TokOn: TikTok-parent ByteDance is reportedly looking to raise $2B at a $180B valuation as its deal with Oracle and Walmart stalls.
  • Vax: AstraZeneca expects its late-stage COVID-19 vaccine trials will deliver results this year, with potential rollouts pending FDA-approval.
  • Buzzed: Pot producer Aphria is buying beer brewer SweetWater (delicious name) for $300M.
  • Stay: Airbnb reportedly plans to make its IPO filing public next week, setting it up for a stock market debut in December.
  • Chipper: Qualcomm stock jumps on an upbeat forecast, suggesting that consumers are upgrading to 5G phones like iPhone 12 (Qualcomm makes the chips).

🍪 Thanks for Snacking with us! Want to share the Snacks? Invite your friends to sign up here.

Friday

Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Match

ID: 1402129

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“In our early days, when we had little revenue or profit, membership growth was a strong indicator of our future potential,” its shareholders letter read. “But now we’re generating very substantial profit and free cash flow.” The company said that it will focus on revenue and operating margin as its main financial metrics, while it will look at time spent on the platform to gauge customer satisfaction.

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Working as a seller called Big River, a secret group of Amazon employees gained access to rival platforms, including Walmart, FedEx, and Alibaba. They used Big River email addresses and went to seller conferences as Big River employees. They even stayed hidden within Amazon itself. These employees would take screenshots of competitors’ systems that they would then show others at Amazon in person to avoid an email paper trail.

Perhaps most strange of all, the company created a fake Japanese streetwear brand called “Not So Ape” (clearly a play on A Bathing Ape) and continues to sell products from the brand on a Shopify store, presumably as an attempt to learn the inner workings of the shopping platform. Of course, copying is old hat for Amazon.

In meetings where they’d use this clandestine information to inform Amazon’s own business practices, the group resorted to literal paper. “[T]he team avoided distributing presentations electronically to Amazon executives. Instead, they printed the presentations and numbered the documents. Executives could look at the reports and take notes, but at the end of the meeting, team members collected the papers to ensure that they had all copies."

Exclusive | Inside Amazon’s Secret Operation to Gather Intel on Rivals

Exclusive | Inside Amazon’s Secret Operation to Gather Intel on Rivals

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Worldcoin has made waves for its iris-scanning metallic orb that promises a future where people can mathematically prove they’re real humans and not AI bots.

But it’s run into trouble: the orbs have been banned across Europe and Africa, and the associated WLD crypto token has plunged 50% over the past month.

For project insiders, who reportedly received a token allocation of 25% of supply, that could equal significant losses. 

Which is what may make World Chain attractive. Crypto exchange Coinbase launched its own L2, Base, last year. Base has since seen rapid user growth — activity that’s generated the exchange millions of dollars in weekly fees. 

Worldcoin could benefit from similar revenue if its L2 is adopted around the world.

Worldcoin, Sam Altman's Crypto Project, Is Building a Layer-2 Chain

Worldcoin, Sam Altman's Crypto Project, Is Building a Layer-2 Chain

But it’s run into trouble: the orbs have been banned across Europe and Africa, and the associated WLD crypto token has plunged 50% over the past month.

For project insiders, who reportedly received a token allocation of 25% of supply, that could equal significant losses. 

Which is what may make World Chain attractive. Crypto exchange Coinbase launched its own L2, Base, last year. Base has since seen rapid user growth — activity that’s generated the exchange millions of dollars in weekly fees. 

Worldcoin could benefit from similar revenue if its L2 is adopted around the world.