LinkedIn's Q4 earnings comfortably beat analysts' expectations yesterday for a second quarter running, causing shares to rise by almost 10 per cent.
Analysts had predicted revenue for Q4 of $279.5m whereas the actual figure came in at $303.6m (£193.2m), representing an 81 per cent year-on-year rise. Profits were up 67 per cent at $11.5m.
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This quarter's bullish performance follows a similarly strong Q3, in which revenues came in at more than three per cent above consensus expectations.
The company is clearly on something of a roll, having recently signed its 200 millionth member. While the majority of its revenue still comes from the US, LinkedIn is expanding aggressively into other parts of the world. There are now more than 11 million members in the UK.
All areas of LinkedIn's business reported strong growth.
Talent Solutions, the recruitment and HR function formerly known as Hiring Solutions, reported a 90 per cent year-on-year increase. Revenues for Marketing Solutions, which enables targeted advertising, rose by 68 per cent, while Premium Subscriptions brought in 79 per cent more.
In an earning's call, CEO Jeff Weiner trumpeted the firm's strategy on mobile platforms, contrasting it with the approach of other social media luminaries such as FaceBook.
"We're pleased with the continued rate of adoption of our mobile products. We're up to about 27 per cent of our unique members visiting on a weekly basis," he said.
"In terms of our mobile monetisation efforts, unlike a number of other consumer web companies, for us mobile monetisation includes three lines of business, not just ad sales. With regard to Talent Solutions and Premium Subscriptions, we're in a position to add value by making the services more ubiquitous."
Last year, LinkedIn embarked upon a thorough re-engineering of its infrastructure and architecture, allowing updates and improvements to be implemented much more quickly.
While not singling out any innovation to account for LinkedIn's current success, Weiner mentioned the new homepage, notifications, endorsements and influencers as features that give visitors a reason to return to the site more often.
