LinkedIn 2012 Annual Report Download - page 26

have seen substantial growth in mobile usage, and we anticipate that the rate of growth in mobile usage
will continue to grow. Advertising is a source of revenue for us, and it is not clear that we will be able
find ways for our Marketing Solutions product to be effectively used on mobile devices. Accordingly, if
our members increasingly use mobile devices as a substitute for access to our online services as opposed
to personal computers, and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our
solutions on mobile devices, if these strategies are not as successful as our offerings for personal
computers, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our financial performance and ability to grow
revenue would be negatively affected.
We expect our operating results to fluctuate on a quarterly and annual basis, which may result in a decline in
our stock price if such fluctuations result in a failure to meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors.
Our revenue and operating results could vary significantly from quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year
and may fail to match our past performance because of a variety of factors, some of which are outside of
our control. Any of these events could cause the market price of our Class A common stock to fluctuate.
Factors that may contribute to the variability of our operating results include:
• our ability to increase our member base and member engagement;
• disruptions or outages in the availability of our websites or services, actual or perceived breaches of
privacy, and compromises of our member data;
• our commitment to putting our members first even if it means forgoing short-term revenue
opportunities;
• shifts in the way members and users access our websites and services from personal computers to
mobile devices;
• the unproven nature of our business model;
• changes in our pricing policies or those of our competitors;
• our ability to increase sales of our products and solutions to new customers and expand sales of
additional products and solutions to our existing customers;
• the size and seasonal variability of our customers’ recruiting and marketing budgets;
• the extent to which existing customers renew their agreements with us and the timing and terms of
those renewals;
• macroeconomic changes, in particular, deterioration in labor markets, which would adversely impact
sales of our Talent Solutions, or economic growth that does not lead to job growth, for instance
increases in productivity;
• the cost of investing in our technology infrastructure, product initiatives and international
expansion may be greater than we anticipate;
• expenses related to hiring and retaining employees;
• the timing and costs of expanding our field sales organization and delays or inability in achieving
expected productivity;
• the timing of certain expenditures, including hiring of employees and capital expenditures;
• the entrance of new competitors in our market whether by established companies or the entrance
of new companies; and
• general industry and macroeconomic conditions.
Given our limited operating history and the rapidly evolving market of online professional networks,
our historical operating results may not be useful to you in predicting our future operating results. We
believe our rapid growth has masked the cyclicality and seasonality of our business. As our revenue
growth rate slows, we expect that the cyclicality and seasonality in our business may become more
pronounced and may in the future cause our operating results to fluctuate. In particular, we expect sales
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