After sharply lowering its forecast for the year last quarter and reorganizing its sales unit,
For the three month ending on June 30, the Mountain View, Calif.-based professional social network reported second-quarter net loss of $68 million, or 53 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $1 million, or 1 cent a share, in the same period last year. Second-quarter earnings, excluding some items, were 55 cents a share, beating the average estimate of analysts polled by
The company reported second-quarter revenue of $712 million, up 33% from $534 million in the same period last year. The figure was higher than the estimate from analysts polled by Yahoo, who anticipated revenue to be $680 million. Second-quarter revenue also exceeded LinkedIn’s previously projected range of $670 million to $675 million. (See the full results here.)
LinkedIn said full-year revenue will be about $2.94 billion, higher analysts' estimates of $2.91 billion. Shares, which have been roughly flat this year, closed down 2.1% to $227.15 during regular trading. They were trading about 4% lower around 5:25 pm ET.
LinkedIn’s largest source of revenue is its talent-solutions business, which mainly caters to corporate recruiters. Second-quarter revenue in that unit was $443 million, up 38% from the same period a year earlier. The marketing-solutions unit, which sells advertising on Linkedin properties, grew slightly slower at 32% to $140 million. Revenue from LinkedIn's premium subscriptions products rose 22% to $128 million in the second quarter.
The network has more than 30,000 corporate customers. LinkedIn said it had 380 million members in the second quarter, up 21% from a year earlier. About 21% of U.S. adults visit LinkedIn at least monthly, compared to the 70% who visit Facebook monthly, a study for Forrester Research found last year.
“LinkedIn continued to deliver increased member and customer value in the second quarter while delivering solid financial results,” LinkedIn's CEO Jeff Weiner said in a press release on Thursday. “We continued to invest in our long-term strategic roadmap and began integrating the acquisition of lynda.com that closed during the quarter.”
LinkedIn said it expects third quarter revenue to fall between $745 million and $750 million, up about 32% from the same period a year earlier.
Product Updates
LinkedIn's CFO Steve Sordello said on the earnings call that the network is planning a "robust product pipeline" that will make major improvements to its core products for the first time in years.
The company said it is taking steps to improve product interfaces, especially messaging tools and alerts users receive from LinkedIn. For example, Weiner said that for every 10 emails LinkedIn used to send, it will now send six. He said this effort has cut user complaints about emails in half.
“You can expect to see more from us in this area as the year continues,” Weiner said.
For the first time last quarter, LinkedIn said that more than 50% of LinkedIn members accessed the app from mobile devices. The company said engagement on the LinkedIn feed rose 60% in the second quarter compared to a year earlier. LinkedIn's recently launched job search app reached more than 3 million activations from about 1 million during the first quarter. LinkedIn has emphasized that its publishing platform is important to its business, in part because it increases the chances that users click on ads, sign up for premium subscriptions and keep their profiles up to date. LinkedIn publishes more than 130,000 posts per week on its platform, which now has more than 1 million long-form publishers.
Lynda.com Integration
During the second quarter, LinkedIn's $1.5-billion acquisition of video tutorial library Lynda.com closed, adding 6,8000 courses to the network. On Thursday's earnings call, LinkedIn offered an update on its plans for integrating and monetizing the recent acquisition.
The company now expects Lynda.com will generate about $90 million in sales in 2015, up significantly from its earlier estimate of $40 million. LinkedIn attributed the boost in part to an earlier than expected close.
"We have already tested early integration efforts, and the results so far have exceeded our expectations," Weiner said about Lynda.com on the earnings call. "One promotional campaign delivered to LinkedIn members outperformed our expectations by 7x in generating new subscribers."
Growth in China
On the earnings call, Weiner updated investors on LinkedIn's presence in China, noting that China is now the second-largest market for new signups behind the U.S. LinkedIn now has more than 10 million users in China, up from 4 million last February. This month, LinkedIn launched a test version of its new app, called “Chitu,” which is its first app made exclusively for the Chinese market. The app, which is currently invite-only, had tens of thousands of sign ups within the first three days of its launch, Weiner said.
