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Bumble stock soars as it announces Russia exit

Despite the inevitable good press, it doesn't cost that much for tech companies to leave Russia.

Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd

Bumble is the latest tech company to exit Russia.

Photo: Taylor Hill/Getty Images

Dating app Bumble is the latest to exit Russia as the war in Ukraine continues.

The company, which owns its eponymous app, as well as Badoo and Fruitz, reported fourth-quarter results today and announced that it's discontinuing operations in Russia and removing all of its apps from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia and Belarus.

It joins a growing list of tech companies including AWS, Microsoft, Samsung, Spotify and WeWork that announced changes to business practices and, in some cases, complete exits from the country.

Bumble shares are up by more than 40% today after posting stronger than expected earnings, prompting an analyst upgrade from BMO Capital.

Bumble wasn't the only U.S. company to leave behind its operations in Russia today. Lumen, a U.S. firm that provides essential internet services, also announced it's discontinuing service in the country.

Lumen has no consumer customers in Russia and only an "extremely small number of enterprise customers" for whom they will no longer be providing local Lumen services, according to the company website. The impetus for the decision was due to increased security risk inside Russia: "… given the increasingly uncertain environment and the heightened risk of state action, we took this move to ensure the security of our and our customers’ networks, as well as the ongoing integrity of the global Internet."

Despite the good press that companies have been receiving for their exits, the economic impact has been minimal, at least for the tech sector. Combined revenue from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus was about 2.8% of Bumble's total annual revenue, almost all due to the Badoo app. It totaled less than 0.1% of the Bumble app's annual revenue in 2021.

This tracks with what the rest of the industry's seeing as well. According to one analyst's estimates, Apple, Google, Meta and Netflix combined would only lose between 1% to 2% of their revenue if they were to exit Russia completely.

The financial loss, meanwhile, pales in comparison to the gain in public sentiment these companies receive for pulling out of the country. A staggering three out of four Americans support U.S. companies cutting business ties with Russia, according to a recent Morning Consult survey.

Michelle Ma

Michelle Ma (@himichellema) is a reporter at Protocol covering climate. Previously, she was a news editor of live journalism and special coverage for The Wall Street Journal. Prior to that, she worked as a staff writer at Wirecutter. She can be reached at mma@protocol.com.

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