One of the keynotes of iDate conference in Cologne this morning was the presentation by Mark Brooks on the online dating market in Europe.

Mark writes for Online Personals Watch since 2004, and is based in the UK. In his keynote presentation he summarized some of the macro developments in the different European markets, mainly focused on the EU5. This group of largest EU markets consists of UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain

A summary of the highlights from Mark’s presentation:

• Fastest growing online dating market in terms of pagviews in the EU is Italy (+11% YoY visits). EU5 average is +3%.
• In UK, PlentyOfFish (free) is largest datingsite, and at least twice as big as Match.com.
• When you take into account mobile, Tinder is #1 free site in UK and not PlentyOfFish. Average user of Tinder uses the service 11 (!) times a day
• International players dominate most EU5 markets, especially UK market.
• Addressable market for mobile dating in EU5 is 241 million smartphone users.
• Interesting development: eDarling enters new verticals and is moving into job and real estate market.
• Events are back in the dating industry; not because they’re profitable, but because they attract new user segments to dating sites.