{"id":43151,"date":"2012-02-10T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-10T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=43151"},"modified":"2012-02-10T14:01:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T12:01:25","slug":"linkedin-upbeat-for-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/43151-linkedin-upbeat-for-2012.html","title":{"rendered":"LinkedIn upbeat for 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professional networking service LinkedIn’s<\/a> outlook for the current quarter and the full year surpassed expectations as the company banks on continued strong product and subscription growth after its fourth-quarter revenue beat estimates.<\/p>\n

The company’s performance and outlook is keenly watched by investors as an indication of whether the business model of Internet companies is solid — especially in light of Facebook’s<\/a> filing for an IPO last week.<\/p>\n

LinkedIn — started in the living room of ex-PayPal<\/a> executive Reid Hoffman in 2002 and officially launched in May 2003 — is similar to Facebook in that it connects people but it is much smaller and is geared towards professionals.<\/p>\n

It makes money by selling premium subscriptions to its members and by helping companies with hiring and marketing. Its services are also used by professionals seeking jobs or contacts.<\/p>\n

LinkedIn said on Thursday revenue for the first quarter of 2012 will be in a range of $170 million to $175 million and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) will be between $25 million to $27 million, topping average Wall Street estimates of $170.8 million revenue and EBITDA of $25.63 million<\/p>\n

For the full year, LinkedIn said it aims to reach adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in a range of $155 million to $165 million and revenue of $840 million to $860 million, well above average expectations<\/p>\n

$828.2 million in revenue and EBITDA of $149.8 million.<\/p>\n

Analysts had expected LinkedIn to benefit from the gradually improving job market as employers look to hire more staff.<\/p>\n

The Mountain View, California-based company said it saw double-digit revenue growth in its subscription base in the fourth quarter and its marketing solutions, while revenue from its hiring solutions product showed triple-digit revenue growth.<\/p>\n

Overall fourth-quarter revenue was $167.7 million compared with $81.7 million a year earlier, above Wall Street expectations of $159.7 million, according to Thomson Reuters I\/B\/E\/S.<\/p>\n

Net income was $6.9 million, or 6 cents per share. Excluding items, LinkedIn said it would have earned 12 cents per share, compared with 7 cents per share expected by analysts.<\/p>\n

However, Thomson Reuters I\/B\/E\/S said it was not immediately able to confirm whether the company’s comparison was in line with its calculations.<\/p>\n

LinkedIn’s stock was up 2.1 percent in after-hours trade after it closed at $76.39 on Thursday, well above its IPO price of $45.<\/p>\n

Wedge Partners analyst Martin Pyykkonen said that he did not see Facebook and Google<\/a> developing similar products and that “many professionals will inherently like to keep their professional and personal profiles separate and distinct”.<\/p>\n

“We think that as a practical matter, professional networking platforms will be largely distinct from ubiquitous social networking,” he recently said in a note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professional networking service LinkedIn’s outlook for the current quarter and the full year surpassed expectations as the company banks on continued strong product and subscription growth after its fourth-quarter revenue beat estimates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340871,"featured_media":31502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[36,161,167,3666,169],"class_list":["post-43151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-active","tag-facebook","tag-google","tag-linkedin","tag-paypal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43155,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43151\/revisions\/43155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}