think that I was the only person in the world attracted to people of the same gender.” So begins Ma Baoli’s letter to investors. The 43-year-old Mr Ma spent nearly two decades as a closeted policeman in small-town China before founding a gay-dating app called Blued. Today it is China’s most popular social network for homosexual men. On July 8th its parent company, BlueCity, listed on New York’s Nasdaq exchange, at a market value of over $600m.
Blued launched in China in 2012, 11 years after homosexuality was removed from the country’s list of mental disorders and as social attitudes towards same-sex relations were liberalising . An international edition of the app was released in 2015. Just over half of Blued’s 6m active monthly users are in China. The rest are mainly in other parts of Asia. It is the market leader in India, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
Growth has been brisk. BlueCity’s revenues reached 207m yuan in the first quarter, up by 43% year on year. These come mainly from sales of in-app virtual gifts, advertising and membership fees . Blued is still loss-making. But that is not holding back ambitions. Mr Ma vows in his shareholder letter to “continue expanding our brand globally” and build “a beautiful rainbow over the capital markets”. America, where gay dating is more mainstream than in most of Asia, is the big pot of gold.
Is it attainable? Blued has so far avoided the sort of scrutiny from American regulators that befell another gay-dating app with Chinese ties: Grindr. Until last month Grindr was owned by Beijing Kunlun, a private Chinese gaming firm which acquired the American app in two separate deals between 2016 and 2018 for a total of $245m.
Unlike Grindr, which was popular in America before Kunlun bought it, Blued is a minnow outside Asia. Its relative obscurity may shield it from examination for a while. If it starts to gain a foothold in America, which is tussling with China over technology and trade, regulators are likely to take a closer look. Anticipating this, Blued insisted in its prospectus that “data related to users in and outside of China are strictly stored on servers in and outside of China, respectively.
It can only be blackmail material as long as society stigmatizes it.
黑人问号
So Chinese have facial recognition and conversations of young men who enjoy getting it on with men?
yes xinjing ping goes with every single girls photos. It's threat to nation security. just allow US apps which is not threat but...
Dating app😂, Trump administration’s next national security concern is probably toilet paper, diaper, and 80 years old grandpa in diaper 😂😂😂
As everything which is not created by yanks.
Chinese firm seeks to sell Grindr dating app.
And they say national-security law should not be implied to Hongkong. While abusing it every single day.
Oh Lordy.
We need some new, decent regulators to deal with these emerging threats to public security. Wear a mask. Vote. Help people to vote. Care for all. =
why? that's all perfectly legal now... most places.
The enemy now has shifted from Russia to China. The Arabs are too quiet.
I'd share this, but I can't read the entire article.
A new section on the UN's global sustainable development goals, policies needed to achieve them, and data on potential job creation through renewable energy development!!!
Yes. After 1 week it becomes unbearable.
Communist China......... it is your Fate Economist when you sponsors take over.
Lots of lovely data all stored on lovely Chinese servers for the lovely CCP