Match Group, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Match Group Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. 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 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tani Shelburne, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Today's call will be led by CEO Bernard Kim and President and CFO 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 BK.

Thanks, Tani. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call. I come to work every day energized because I get to work at a company dedicated to helping people find love, happiness, and human connections. That inspiration not only inspires me, but also our teams, and has enabled another strong quarter of strong operating and financial results for Match Group in Q3. highlighted by a second consecutive quarter of record total revenue and AOI. Our businesses have demonstrated that setting clear goals and objectives can not only build momentum in the current year, but also set up our company for a bright future. Tinder is a great example of this. Tinder's business model was built largely on virality, but it's not lost on me how important it is to continue to drive forward with innovative marketing and product initiatives while also rebuilding the revenue momentum that Tinder has enjoyed for so long, not just in 2023, but for years to come. Looking at 2023 thus far, I deeply believe we made the right decision in prioritizing revenue growth initiatives at Tinder with US price optimizations and weekly subscription packages. While we recognize that these actions have created short-term volatility in Tinder's payer count, we're essentially resetting Tinder's payer base at a significantly higher rate, which has enabled double-digit revenue growth one quarter ahead of our initial expectations, an outcome that we're very pleased with. The other component of Tinder's ongoing success is centered on product and marketing initiatives that reignite user growth and improve its brand narrative. We saw great strength through June in terms of total sign-ups and reactivations as a result of the It Starts with a Swipe campaign. However, in late summer, Tinder pulled back its spend on the campaign and concentrated more heavily into female-focused messaging. Although overall user trends remained slightly down as a result of the pullback, Tinder's younger female signups did not see the same pullback, proving that we continue to make good progress with this critical demographic. Tinder also began marketing again on college campuses for the first time in three years and launched a new feature called Matchmaker in mid-October, both of which featured well-known rappers as part of their campaigns. We are so excited to leverage the power of music into our work because we know how core it is to the lives of Gen Z users. Tinder Select, our first ever high-end tier, also rolled out in September and has seen early interest. But the nature of the business is such that we need to continue to iterate and make sure that it's an exceptional experience that deeply resonates for users and provides the value that they are looking for. Importantly, Tinder's learnings from 2023 are informing its 2024 roadmap, which we will continue to build off of what we've accomplished throughout this year. For example, we've learned from launching weekly subscriptions that the younger generations Tinder primarily serves have more of an affinity to lower price and shorter term duration products than we had initially anticipated. Therefore, we're exploring opportunities to increase our monetization by revisiting our a la carte portfolio. The reality is that roughly 85% of our a la carte payers are subscribers, representing a very large untapped potential for future monetization and payer penetration. Also, we believe that Tinder has a long runway ahead in international markets where it can really push penetration higher. These represent real opportunities for Tinder and give me a great deal of confidence in Tinder's ability to achieve future growth expectations. Looking across the entire Match Group portfolio, I continue to be amazed by the level of team collaboration, work output, and innovation taking place on behalf of daters across the globe. Hinge continues to prove that when you have a great product and a brand that deeply resonates, good things happen. Through Q3, Hinge drove usage levels to an all-time high, becoming the number one most downloaded dating app in several important markets like the UK and Australia, and has firmly solidified itself as a top three dating app in the U.S. Not only that, but Hinge continues to make massive inroads in its European expansion markets. All of this enabled another quarter of strong double-digit revenue growth. With Hinge well on its way to delivering its $400 million annual revenue target in 2023, we see an even brighter future ahead led by ongoing growth initiatives and more monetization capabilities. At Match Group Asia, Azar continues to post double-digit revenue growth rates driven by its new AI-enabled matching algorithm, a demonstration of HyperConnect's best-in-class talent coming to life to drive user growth and financial strength. At Pairs, we launched our first-ever TV campaign, which marks an extremely important step in breaking down stigma and unlocking improved user trends. And at E&E, we rolled out Archer, our first dating app for gay, bisexual, and queer men nationwide in late September. Again, one full quarter ahead of initial plans, and the team is even accelerating its international plans, giving such strong user receptivity thus far as it zeroes in on key competitors. Archer is another example of how our teams take learnings and effectively apply them to drive improved outcomes for its users and our portfolio. We remain deeply committed to our innovation and the use of AI to provide users the best possible dating experience. And I look forward to sharing more on our efforts in our Q4 call as we think about how innovation can really improve our users' experience and expand the category. We know there is much more work to be done to finish 2023 from a position of strength and set our company up to deliver ongoing shareholder value over time. With that, I'll turn it over to Gary.