The pandemic accelerated mobile trends by years, and these changes should stick even as the pandemic wanes. Many people were forced to use apps for food delivery, finance, fitness, and shopping, and they’ve become accustomed to these new behaviors. Even app categories that were hurt during the pandemic, such as travel or dating apps, have been resilient. People have acclimated to new forms of mobile shopping and activities, and they’ll be more willing to try mobile interfaces for other activities going forward.

On today's episode, we discuss what "going back to the office" may actually mean, the dawn of “tiered-access journalism,” video safe havens for brands, possible surges in travel plans, Facebook's new video speed dating app called Sparked, why the Rubik's Cube was invented, and more. Tune in to listen to the discussion with eMarketer principal analysts Jillian Ryan and Jeremy Goldman, and analyst at Insider Intelligence Blake Droesch.

Dating apps also followed surprising patterns. Many dating app users pivoted fairly quickly to a new reality. “We did see dating apps were surprisingly resilient during the pandemic,” Sydow said. "That was really interesting from the perspectives of both weekly active users and time spent.”. Analyst Take.

Many mobile app categories saw a boost last year as more consumers spent time with their devices during quarantines. According to our estimates for smartphone app user growth, grocery apps, food delivery apps, and health/fitness apps were the three fastest-growing categories in 2020.

Dating apps are seeing an influx of new users as many continue to shelter in place. This year, we forecast there will be 26.6 million smartphone dating app users, according to our latest estimates. That’s an 18.4% increase from 2019.

We expect the number of people who own a smartphone and use dating apps to grow 5.3% this year, reaching roughly 25 billion. This figure is much flatter than our previous forecast of 9.8% growth, and just one-sixth of growth in 2016.

Facebook Dating launched in the US last week, giving users ages 18 and older access to typical dating app features like specialized profiles and matchmaking algorithms. Though the dating app space is crowded, Facebook has an opportunity to set itself apart by simplifying what's arguably the most vexing aspect of online dating: setting up a profile.

eMarketer junior forecasting analyst Nazmul Islam shares our usage numbers for US smartphone dating apps and doesn't dance around the reasons for a slowdown in growth. Watch now.

Facebook Dating. In October, Facebook launched its dating service, Facebook Dating, in Europe. The service has been available in the US since September 2019. Marketer Takeaway: The dating app space is less crowded in Europe than it is in the US, which is likely what Facebook is banking on with the rollout.