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LinkedIn posts profit, beats expectations

Social network releases its first earnings report since becoming a public company, posting a profit while Wall Street was expecting a loss.

Rachel King Staff Writer
Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.
Rachel King
2 min read

LinkedIn today reported quarterly earnings as a public company for the first time, and they managed to beat Wall Street at the same time.

The company reported second-quarter earnings of $4.5 million, or 4 cents a share (statement). Non-GAAP earnings were 10 cents a share on a revenue of $121 million. Wall Street was expecting LinkedIn to report a loss at 4 cents a share on revenue of $104.5 million.

Steve Sordello, LinkedIn's chief financial officer, reflected on the last quarter on the company's blog:

In the second quarter, we saw record levels of members, unique visitors, and page views, while top line growth accelerated. Going forward, we plan to continue to invest in our team, technology, and products in order to increase the value we deliver to members and realize the full potential of the LinkedIn platform.

LinkedIn went public in May with an initial public offering of $45 a share and an overall valuation of roughly $4.5 billion.

For the outlook, LinkedIn is predicting a revenue of $121 million to $125 million at the end of Q3. For 2011, LinkedIn is aiming to hit a revenue mark of $475 million to $485 million.

Key points:

• Introduced LinkedIn Share Button; more than 100,000 publishers are now using it to drive up traffic.

• Launched LinkedIn for Android in April.

• Expanded international presence: opened Asian regional headquarters in Singapore in May and a Northern European HQ in Stockholm in June. The total number of offices outside the U.S. is now 12.

• In June, LinkedIn was made available to members in three new languages (Turkish, Russian, and Romanian) bringing the total to nine.

By the numbers:

• Members grew to 115.8 million, up 61 percent from Q2 2010.

• Page views: 7.1 billion, an increase of 80 percent from Q2 2010.

• Mobile page views have increased by 400 percent year over year.

• Revenue from Hiring Solutions products: $58.6 million, an increase of 170 percent from Q2 2010.

This story was originally published on ZDNet's Between the Lines.