Europeans Nearly Fifty Percent More Engaged in Online Dating Compared to North Americalns

comScore: Dating. European Online Personals Category up 26 Percent versus Year Ago. European Internet users are far more engaged in online dating than those in North Americal. , 18 percent of European Internet users (38.2 million) visited online personals sites in July compared to a slightly lower 17 percent of North Americaln Internet users. However, European visitors viewed an average of 310 pages per visitor in July – 44 percent more pages than their North Americaln counterparts, who averaged only 216 pages per visitor. Within Europe, German Internet users were the most active in July, viewing an average of 446 pages per visitor per month, compared to 343 pages in France and 213 pages in the U.K.

Online Personals Category – Key Statistics by Country/ Region July 2006 –North America, Europe, U.K., French and German Online Populations, Age 15+ Home and Work Locations Source: comScore Word Metrix
	North America	Europe	U.K.	France	Germany
Total Online Population (000)	172,700	215,500	30,000	23,800	32,000
Online Personals Unique Visitors (000)	29,100	38,200	6,900	4,700	7,300
Online Personals Reach (%)	17%	18%	23%	20%	23%
Y/Y Growth Rate – Total Online Population	4%	11%	4%	7%	9%
Y/Y Growth Rate – Visitors to Online Personals	0%	26%	26%	23%	22%
Average Online Personals Pages per Month	216	310	213	343	446

The growth rates for users of personals sites in North Americal and Europe are also remarkably different, as the online personals audience in North Americal remained flat compared to last July, while the personals audience in Europe grew 26 percent.

In North Americal, large online personals sites like Match.com and Yahoo! Personals still lead the rankings in terms of reach, but their growth rates have slowed in the past year, commented Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe. In Europe, more specialist local sites such as Meetic in France and iLove in Germany have become successful, experiencing double-digit growth and dominating the category in their home countries.

Online Personals Sites Attracting Most Visitors – By Country July 2006 – North America, Europe, U.K., French and German Online Populations, Age 15+ Home plus Work Locations Source: comScore World Metrix
	#1 Online Personals Site	Total Online Reach	Reach in Personals Category *
North America	Yahoo! Personals	3%	18%
U.K.	DatingDirect.com	7%	31%
France	Meetic	11%	54%
Germany	iLove.de	11%	48%

* Unique visitors to the site divided by unique visitors to the category.

The leading North Americaln online personals sites, which are generally subscription-based, are being pressured by free social networking sites like MySpace and more specialized subscription-based services which focus on interests and functions. It will be interesting to see how the growth rates of the leading European players are affected as local social networking sites such as Bebo in the U.K. gain traction and as MySpace rolls out across Europe.

usage of the online personals category Publ 20060925