Shares of Bumble Inc, an online dating company, came under the bulls’ radar in Thursday’s trading session, as they spiked sharply in reaction to the company’s upbeat fourth-quarter performance.
The shares opened on 12 March with a huge gap-up at $3.67 apiece and maintained the momentum to reach the day’s high of $4.25, a 50% surge from Wednesday’s close of $2.84. Today’s intraday jump was also the biggest the stock has seen in recent times and pushed it to trade at the highest level since November 2025.
The sharp gains came after months of underperformance, which had eroded millions of dollars in investor wealth as growth in the online dating market slowed amid stiff competition.
Bumble on Wednesday posted fourth-quarter revenue above estimates, as the dating app operator began to see early benefits from a broad turnaround plan. Although the company reported a 14.3% drop in revenue to $224.2 million, it still came in above analysts’ estimates of $221.3 million.
Its average revenue per paying user for the reported quarter increased 7.9% to $22.20, whereas the number of paying users fell 20.5% to 3.3 million. Meanwhile, performance marketing expenses were reduced by more than 80% year-on-year in an effort to drive organic growth.
The company reported a net loss of $611.1 million, or 272.6% of revenue, which included $630.5 million in non-cash impairment charges, compared with net earnings of $9.3 million, or 3.6% of revenue, in the year-ago period.
“We executed according to plan in the fourth quarter, delivering results at the high end of our guidance ranges while completing the most intensive phase of our member base reset,” said Kevin Cook, CFO of Bumble Inc.
For the current quarter, the company expects revenue in the range of $209 million to $213 million, which straddles the consensus estimate of $210.7 million, while adjusted EBITDA is projected to be between $76 million and $80 million, representing a 21% year-on-year increase at the midpoint.
Besides reporting its Q4 results, the company announced major product updates, including the launch of “Dates”, an AI assistant powered by its “Bee” model designed to automate matchmaking.
Bumble has been undergoing a strategic overhaul since founder Whitney Wolfe Herd returned as CEO about a year ago, pushing for product improvements and new artificial intelligence-enabled features aimed at better appealing to younger daters and countering stiff competition in a saturated market, according to reuters.
Still far below IPO price
Although the shares gained sharply, they still trade at steep losses compared with their issue price. Bumble went public on 11 February 2021, on the Nasdaq at $43 per share, raising $2.15 billion and achieving a valuation of over $8 billion.
Since then, the shares have seen heavy selling pressure on Wall Street amid rising competition.
Wolfe Herd, who previously co-founded Tinder, started Bumble in late 2014 with the novel idea that women should initiate conversations on the dating app. While that pitch was unique at the time, revenue growth has since slowed, with Gen Z diverging from older generations in how they prefer to date.
Along with Bumble, other dating companies, including Match Group and Grindr Inc, are also reinventing their apps in the age of AI in a bid to reverse stubborn subscriber losses.
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