New Years Eve Boosts Online Dating

Thursday 1 January 2009

New Years Eve Boosts Online Dating

New Years Eve has galvanised many single Kiwis into action, with online dating activity increasing dramatically over the last week.

“Kiwi online dating follows a regular pattern as the soul searching done around Christmas and New Years Eve rouses lonely hearts into action,” said HYPERLINK "http://www.findsome.co.nz's" www.findsome.co.nz’s business manager, Mike O’Donnell.

“We’ve seen a 24% increase in daters sending online smiles over the last week, and online messaging is up 16%. We think it’s driven by the 30-55 year-old set making New Year resolutions to get serious about finding a partner,” he said.

A survey by the Pew Research Centre in the United States found 74% of single adults had used the internet to further their romantic interests. The same survey found that 15% of the general public knew someone who was in a long term relationship or had married someone they first met online.

The typical online dater on Findsomeone is 41, has some tertiary education, is a non-smoker and a social drinker. About 54% are male and 46% female. Typically daters in larger cities use online dating more intensively than smaller towns where personal networks are still strong (full breakdown provided below).

Findsomeone has 250,000 active New Zealand members and is operated by Trade Me. Kiwi online daters sent around 15,000 messages and 7000 online smiles on New Years Eve.

ENDS

Region / Online Daters / Population Size

Northland / 1% / 3.6%
Auckland / 35% / 32.4%
Waikato / 9% / 9.4%
Bay of Plenty / 6% / 6.3%
Gisborne/Hawkes Bay / 3% / 4.7%
Taranaki / 2% / 2.6%
Wanganui / 1% / 1.1%
Manawatu/Wairarapa / 5% / 5.3%
Wellington / 15% / 10.5%
Marlborough/Nelson / 4% / 3.2%
West Coast / 1% / 0.7%
Canterbury/Sth Canterbury / 14% / 13.8%
Otago/Southland / 4% / 6.2%

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