Pandemic Hampers Last-Minute Valentine Efforts

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic hasn't just impacted business dealings and social life around the globe, it might have also put a damper on people's search for love in the run-up to Valentine's Day. According to data from AppMagic, January has traditionally been a stellar month for Tinder, the most popular dating app in North America, Europe, and large parts of Asia. As our chart shows, Covid-19 likely prevented many last-minute Valentines in 2021.

While the app was downloaded 3.7 million times in North and Latin America (NALA) alone and 7.1 million times total in January 2019, downloads decreased over the year. Numbers spiked again in January 2020, with 9.2 million device owners starting their online dating adventure supposedly either as a fresh start into the new year or maybe even looking ahead to Valentine's Day in February. As the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic in March 2020, download numbers for the month dwindled to just 5.4 million in April but picked up again only a month later.

The resurgence of the app's popularity was largely driven by the NALA region. This is especially understandable considering the share of U.S. Americans being partnered up in 2021, which stood at only 56 percent this past year according to data from our Statista Global Consumer survey. Still, singles were apparently less ready to mingle at the start of 2021, with the app registering only 6.4 million downloads across all surveyed regions in January 2021.