Match Group, Inc.

Welcome to the Match Group second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Bill Archer, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Today's call will be led by CEO Char Duvet and CFO and COO Gary Swidler. They'll make a few brief remarks, and then we'll open it up for questions. Before we start, I need to remind everyone that during this call, we may discuss our outlook and future performance. These forward-looking statements may be preceded by words such as, we expect, we believe, we anticipate, or similar statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and our actual results could differ materially from the views expressed today. Some of these risks have been set forth in our earnings release and our periodic reports filed with the SEC. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Shar.

Thank you, Bill. Good morning, and thank you for joining the call today. Gary and I are once again doing this from our offices here in Dallas. And while our offices are not fully open yet, we did resume some travel and in-person meetings in Q2 as the vast majority of our employees got vaccinated. And, you know, this optimism was also reflected in the sentiment of our users, particularly in the U.S. and parts of Europe. As a result, every one of our major brands grew revenue in Q2, collectively delivering 27% year-over-year growth. And we have solid momentum as we enter the second half of the year. As much as I'm ready for COVID to no longer be a topic of discussion, it does appear that we have to live with it for a little while longer. At the end of the day, widespread global vaccinations are really the only way out of this pandemic for us, which is why our brands have been particularly active these past few months, collaborating with the White House in the US and the governments in the UK, France, and Ireland, on PSAs and vaccine information campaigns and even a summer rap hit about the vaccine. Turns out daters are open to and are getting vaccinated at higher rates than the average population, which is certainly a very good thing. And vaccine badges have become a very attractive feature on many of our platforms. In recent weeks, we have been monitoring the surge of the Delta variant and the various restrictions in countries, particularly in Asia. We've learned a lot these past 16 months about the impact of case surges and restrictions to mobility, uncertainty driving news cycles, et cetera, on our metrics and business in various parts of the world. And our confidence in the continued resilience of our business is based on what we've seen. People around the globe have continued to turn to our products for conversations, flirtations, first video dates, real life dates. And for me, one of the exciting things about this quarter was Tinder's product launches, which are part of an app experience transformation journey that, quite frankly, we haven't undertaken since its very early days. The team there is executing really well. carefully testing the building blocks of this transformation roadmap. It's been super encouraging to see the promising engagement metrics with these new products. And Tinder subscriber slash payer additions in Q2 were among some of the highest we've seen. And this momentum has continued into July. In the second quarter, we also closed the HyperConnect deal. And even though travel restrictions have prevented us from meeting in person, our teams have quickly mobilized to collaborate on a number of exciting potential synergies. Near term, our priorities are to both help calibrate and collaborate to drive profitable growth for HyperConnect's Azar and Hakuna haps and lay out the broader strategy and roadmap for social discovery. We are also starting the work to roll out HyperConnect's video, audio, and AI technologies onto our platforms over the next several months. Longer term, there is much about this acquisition that excites us. We expect Asia Pacific will soon contribute over 20% of our overall revenue and still offers the biggest growth opportunity given where the category awareness and penetration stands today. And HyperConnect gives us a strong, talented team and footprint in the region. The more I learn about the AR, the conversational AI, and other technologies their team and incubation lab has been working on, the more I am excited about the ability to leverage this on our dating platforms to provide a richer, more akin to real-life experience online. Everything from self-expression to getting to know each other can be transformed. You know, one of the holy grails for us in online dating has always been to bridge the disconnect that happens between people chatting online and then meeting someone in person. And these technologies will eventually allow us to build experiences that will help people determine if they have that much elusive chemistry or not. And so as we said in the letter, our ultimate vision here is for people to never have to go on a bad first date again. Finally, as part of our continuing journey as a fully independent company, we released our first impact report in Q2. I have always felt lucky to have spent much of my career at a company with such a fundamental and important social mission. of bringing people together and helping them find dates and relationships and love and marriage. We've always been inspired by the success stories of our members, the millions of babies born, and love that has been forged by our platforms. And in this annual report, in addition to the social work that we do, we are committed to sharing our performance on ESG metrics and progress and relevant impact areas including the very important work to develop leading technology and solutions for online safety. I feel very good about where we are as a company, as a business, and I look forward to continuing to deliver on our vision and goals. And while the Delta variant surge is a reminder that we aren't fully out of the pandemic woods yet, We do have more data and understanding to be able to manage through it with agility. And with that, I will hand it over to Gary to talk more about the quarter.