LinkedIn 2012 Annual Report Download - page 1

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April 2013
To Our Shareholders:
2012 was a transformative year for LinkedIn. We exited 2011 having successfully revamped our product
development infrastructure, and 2012 was a year of accelerated product innovation based on that
investment. The products we delivered throughout the year drove record levels of member engagement
and financial results.
LinkedIn remains focused on its mission to connect the world’s professionals to make them more
productive and successful. Our vision, to create economic opportunity for each of the world’s more than
three billion professionals, galvanizes our employees and our culture. That culture remains one of our
strongest competitive advantages and fuels our product strategy to help members connect, find, and be
found through their professional identities; provide valuable insights making members more successful in
their careers; and enable LinkedIn to work everywhere our member work.
By leveraging our new development infrastructure, we set out to make products that would simplify the
member experience on LinkedIn, grow our platform, and create daily value for LinkedIn members. Strong
member engagement metrics emphasizes the value we continue to create throughout the ecosystem. In
2012, we added 57 million new members, ending the year with approximately 202 million members in
total, and maintaining our pace of adding approximately two members per second to LinkedIn. We
celebrated passing the 200 million member milestone in December, up from less than 100 million
members just two years ago.
As measured by comScore, excluding Slideshare, unique visitors to LinkedIn grew 29% versus 2011 to an
average of 109 million. Pageviews, as measured by comScore and excluding Slideshare and mobile member
engagement, rose 27% versus 2011 to 37 billion, and when including mobile engagement, our growth was
substantially higher.
Our Simplify, Grow, Everyday strategy led to one of the most dynamic periods of product development in
our history, culminating in stronger engagement growth in the fourth quarter.
Simplify: In 2012, we made great strides towards making it easier for members to unlock value from our
core products and services. In the spring, we introduced a more visual version of People You May Know.
This was the first refresh of many of our pillar products throughout the year. In July, we redesigned the
Homepage, leading to all-time highs in status updates and social activity, including comments, shares and
likes. During the fall, we introduced a new version of the LinkedIn Profile, the professional profile of
record, and in the fourth quarter, on average, the number of members updating their profiles doubled
versus the fourth quarter of 2011.
Grow: Grow embodies two priorities: expanding our global membership and extending our monetization
efforts to benefit both members and customers. Product localization continued to drive strong member
growth in 2012. LinkedIn is now available in 19 languages around the world, and more than 64% of all
LinkedIn members now come from outside the U.S.
In terms of monetization, we increased the value delivered to corporate Talent Solutions customers by
improving the Recruiter platform. We launched and subsequently witnessed strong uptake of Talent
Pipeline, allowing vastly improved candidate search and organization. Recruiter is also now available for
the first time in multiple languages with the addition of French, German, and Portuguese. Also, reflecting
the larger engagement shift to mobile, we made jobs on mobile available to LinkedIn members yielding
strong results. More than 20% of jobs views and nearly 30% of jobs viewers came from mobile devices in
the fourth quarter.
In Marketing Solutions, we introduced several new products, including simplified and redesigned
Company Pages, Targeted Status Updates, and new analytics and APIs for customers. These changes