Meir Strahlberg, CEO of Avalanche, LLC the publisher of Amor.com, says that the overall online dating market is worth $1 billion in sales worldwide. US Hispanic dating sites are expected to reach $150 million in annual revenues by 2011, according to a study by Pew Research, and 14% of Hispanics use online dating, higher than any other ethnicity/race in the study. “It's important that 50% of online daters subscribe to more than one dating service and there is a small, but significant, percentage of non-Hispanics who use Hispanic dating sites,” says Joe Spector, founder and President of dating site QuieroLatino.com.
The Latin dating site world is split in a variety of ways: There are those who are sister sites of larger general market dating sites such as Match.com or Date.com, and those independent sites that are not affiliated with larger, heavily-backed sites.
Then there are those sites that are purely U.S. Hispanic, vs. those that are more global in scope, pulling users in from Latin America and Spain.
Finally, there is the revenue model distinction: While some sites rely on frigid monthly membership fees, others have adopted the free model and the warm embrace of ad-revenue. Still other dating sites are afraid of committing to either, displaying advertising to non-paying members, and not to premium members. Any way you slice it, with Hispanic dating sites, love is truly in the air—virtually, anyhow.