Post-COVID, Dating App Engagement in Japan Is on the Rise
Love is in the air—and on your smartphone. While the COVID-19 pandemic may have temporarily delayed plans for in-person romance, interest in dating apps has grown across Japan in the past three years. The recent reopening of restaurants, attractions, and other popular destinations is expected to boost this trend.
Singles in Japan are turning to popular dating apps like Tapple, Omiai, Pairs, Tinder and more to find a connection. According to Adjust data, dating apps in Japan saw a 4% app install growth year-on-year between 2020 and 2021. Users who install the app are also spending more time swiping and chatting. 2021-2022 saw a 13% year-on-year increase in total sessions, and in H1 of 2022, session lengths also averaged 14.4 minutes longer.
Adjust and Liftoff’s Japan Mobile App Trends 2022 looks closely at app engagement and costs for installs and registrations across the dating vertical. Here are some of the highlights from the report.
CPI and CPA Registration for Dating Apps
From 2021 to 2022, cost per install (CPI) stayed between $4 to $6 for most of the year. On average, CPI is higher in the winter and lower in spring and in summer. CPI rose steadily between June 2021 and peaked in winter 2022 at $6.60 before falling again to $4.44 in May.
For the most part, cost per action for registration has been trending down for the past year. CPA registration averaged $13.86 in June 2021. After falling in summer 2021, costs rose to $11.53 between September 2022 and February 2022 but fell to as low as $7.09 in May 2022.
CPI and CPA on iOS vs. Android
Here is a breakdown of CPI and CPA rates across iOS and Android devices.
Apple has a significant foothold in Japan’s mobile market, with over 65% of the market share. This makes it less expensive in general to drive new installs on the platform. At $4.47 per install, CPIs for dating apps are slightly lower on iOS than on Android.
Although it costs slightly more to drive installs on Android, Android users cost less to register.
CPA registration on Android is almost $2 lower than on iOS.
Leverage Your App’s Unique Value Prop to Stand Out
The perk of dating apps is that frequent users will typically engage with more than one at a time. But since user experience for dating apps is relatively similar—enter your interests, set preferences, and swipe to find a match—competition between apps can be fierce. In addition to persistent campaign optimization, marketers need to ensure their product stands out.
Tapple CMO Masatoshi Takahashi puts it this way: “As dating apps have grown, so has the competition. It isn’t easy to stand out if we just do the same thing that other apps are doing. Uniqueness is the key to building a competitive advantage.” Whether it means switching up your creative or highlighting exclusive features, finding your differentiator makes all the difference.
Download the Japan Mobile App Trends 2022 report today to discover more insights on growing your app in the region. Find installs and user acquisition benchmarks for dating, gaming, e-commerce and other key mobile app verticals.
