In a previous post I looked at ladyboy heights to see where the best place to find petite ladyboys was.
In this post I take a look at which Asian dating sites are the most popular with internet users.
Why is this information so important?
Because if you want the maximum amount of choice, then you want to use a dating site that has the most members.
But are very popular dating sites always the best? We’ll come to that later on.
First let’s have a look at the data.
The chart below shows the relative popularity of the major Asian dating sites:
I collected this data from Google’s publically accessible data about how many people search for a specific website.
So what can we learn from this chart? Here are some highlights:
- The most popular Asian Dating site is AsianDating.com. Or is it? The data might flatter this site since the term Asian Dating is pretty generic whereas the other sites are more specific names of brands (e.g. LoveMe).
- Most of the big sites have really failed at moving into mobile. LoveMe failed with mobile. Blossoms failed with mobile. Thai Love Links failed with mobile. Even Cupid Media have largely failed, as their App versions of sites like Chinese Cupid are really poor. The collective failure of the big brands to move into mobile apps has enabled Thai Friendly to build a massive market share off the back of it having an excellent mobile app.
- Former large and popular sites have really fallen by the wayside. Look at the pitiful market share Thai Love Lines now enjoys. It’s far more obscure than MyLadyboyDate, which only launched in 2013. Blossoms is also going the same way. What both sites have in common is that they’ve failed to invest in technology or in marketing. But it’s mostly due to a failure to improve their sites.
- That Chinese Cupid has a poor showing is mostly down to it being rebranded from Chinese Love Links. This has cost it a lot of market share as Chinese Love Links was a very well known brand. It’s shown through the userbase. When I used it in 2013 it was excellent. Now when you go on you’ll really struggle to find dates. Contrast this with Japan Cupid and Korean Cupid, which have much more brand recognition according to the data above.
- MyLadyboyDate has done a magnificent job of entering the ladyboy dating niche that LadyboyKisses previously had a real monopoly on. LadyboyKisses has a lot of ladyboy profiles on the site, but its site design is really old and it’s a pain to use. By constrast MyLadyboyDate has a responsive design that works really well on mobile devices.
- Thai dating sites have a big showing in the above chart. There does seem to be a general increase in the number of guys who are interested in Thai brides. It’s weird because at the same time Thailand seems to becoming a worst place to retire to, plus it’s getting ever more expensive.
- The fall of expensive letter writing sites… It’s kind of good to see that LoveMe, iDateAsia and the other expensive Asian dating sites have fallen out of fashion. These sites guaranteed gigantic profits for their operators, but there was no guarantee of love for their users. The expensive dating sites are still around, but these days they beat the independent and honest review sites like ThaiBride.Net by frequently changing their names. For example I’ve lost count of the number of times that ChnLove has rebranded. Anyway, if you’re seeking an Asian dating site then stick to the big name brands and at least you know you won’t get ripped off. The same can’t be said about the scammer thing – all of these sites (with the possible exception of LoveMe) are infested with scammers to be extremely careful!
Sites That Didn’t Make it Into the Chart
Since I made the chart of popular Asian dating sites above I’ve just remembered a few sites that I forgot to add. If you want to see a particular site listed then leave a comment below and I’ll add it to this list as well.
- Chnlove has about the same popularity as LoveMe. This site is a really expensive one to use so be careful. It’s had a lot of name changes, and is currently Asia.Me. The constant rebrands mean it makes it harder for guys to look for honest reviews of the site.
- Asia.Me – the new name for Chnlove – is less popular than Mizz Thai so there is very little brand recognition.
- Christian Filipina actually has quite a lot of brand recognition. It’s been reasonably successful as an independent site. Numbers wise its brand is about one third as popular as Blossoms.
- China Love Match is a little more popular than Asian Kisses. Again it’s a site that hasn’t invested in technology for at least a decade and it really shows. It’s also in quite a small niche. It’s rather harder for a foreigner to find a Chinese bride compared to a Thai or Filipino bride. There are less Chinese women looking for foreign husbands compared to the numbers doing the same in Thailand or the Philippines.
- Ah, I forgot Vietnam Cupid. This one is gaining in popularity as the country is opening up. However, it’s only about 80% as well known as Japan Cupid or Korean Cupid. The Vietnamese dating scene is surely going to grow hugely in the next 10 years. Vietnam is stealing high value tech jobs from restrictive firewalled up China and it’s becoming an attractive place to go and teach English. They’re also very liberal with visa issuance and it’s far easier to stay in Vietnam long term than it is in Thailand.
- LoveAwake used to be a popular site for finding foreign partners but again it belongs in the past. It’s about as popular as MyLadyboyDate.
- Many Asian dating sites are dearly departed. Oh come on, we don’t miss them at all. Bebotsonly was a site in the Philippines dating niche but it seems to have gone offline. I never did work out what a Bebot was, or what advantages it was to marrying one. Well if you know of any other sites that are gone then add a comment below and we’ll see if anyone else remembers them.
Big is NOT Always Best!
So that was a look at the biggest dating sites in terms of their popularity and membership numbers.
Now, is a bigger dating site necessarily better?
In my experience, no.
Let’s look at a case study.
I’m currently living in China and I use 2 different dating sites and 1 dating mobile app:
- The Chinese Cupid dating site.
- The JiaYuan dating site.
- The TanTan App.
JiaYuan is only available in the Chinese language and it’s the rough equivalent of Match.com for the Mainland Chinese market. It has around 100x as many members as Chinese Cupid. So it’s a sure thing when it comes to dates, right?
No!
I’ve actually had a lot more success on Chinese Cupid. Chinese Cupid is much more aimed at Chinese women who are interested in dating foreigners, so it’s a better site for me to use, despite the much smaller membership base.
I’ve also found that bigger dating sites in other markets aren’t always so good. For example Match.com just had too many members. Women were like kids in a candy store, always looking for The Perfect Guy. So they never actually went on any dates, they just endlessly window shopped. Now I find much the same is true with TanTan (the Chinese version of Tinder).
In the Asian dating scene I’ve also found that bigger isn’t necessarily bigger. I tried DateInAsia but never got any dates from it when I lived in China and Thailand. I did much better on the comparatively smaller sites Chinese Cupid and Thai Cupid.
Some of the dating sites shown in the chart above have really small numbers of visitors compared to the giants such as AsianDating and DateInAsia. But they might still be worth considering. For example, if you’re interested in East Asian ladies then JapanCupid and KoreanCupid are both worth a look. Also if you’re looking for a travel companion then Mizz Thai is quite popular in the Thai girlfriend for rent niche.
Summary
So if you want to join an Asian dating site that has a lot of members, then choose either AsianDating, DateInAsia or Thai Friendly.
Which Asian dating site is your favourite? Have I forgotten to list any sites? I’d love to know – leave your comments below.
