(Reuters) -Bumble forecast fourth-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, in a sign that sticky inflation and growing competition were weighing on user spending on its dating apps, sending its down more than 6% in extended trading.
Bumble faces competition from rival Match Group, which has rolled out several new features, including weekly subscription plans and new engagement and privacy features across Tinder and Hinge.
Total paying users on the parent company of Bumble, Badoo and Fruitz increased to 3.8 million in the third quarter, compared with 3.3 million a year earlier, it said.
The results come a day after Bumble said founder Whitney Wolfe Herd would step down as CEO of the dating apps operator, and would be succeeded by Lidiane Jones, the CEO of Salesforce-owned workplace messaging-platform Slack.
The CEO change marks the second big executive departure at the company — shares of which have lost around a third of their value so far this year over concerns of slowing growth.
The Austin, Texas-based company expects revenue for the quarter ending Dec. 31 to be between $272 million and $278 million, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $285.9 million, according to LSEG data.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Shilpi Majumdar)
