LinkedIn, India becomes second largest market

Social networking site LinkedIn's Indian user base has grown 300% in the three years it has had a marketing presence in India. The firm, today, has about 14 million users from India, which has quickly become its second-largest market globally, bigger than China and only behind the United States, according to Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn's chief executive. 

Those 14 million Indian users join another 135 million-odd who are tapping into some 2 million companies and many more individuals to seek out jobs (or be sought out for one), organise conferences and network with a broad spectrum of people. On a recent trip to India to keynote his firm's B2B conference in Mumbai, Weiner-the 42-year-old former executive-in-residence, with two venture capital firms in Silicon Valley-said the firm's mobile business accounts for a fifth of its user base today, compared to 8% in January 2011. 

"Mobile is our fastest-growing business," says Weiner. "LinkedIn connects talent with opportunity at a massive scale. Ultimately, our vision is to create an economic opportunity for every professional," he adds. The stage may now be set for monetisation. In February, on an earnings call after announcing the company's fourth-quarter results of 2011, Weiner had said that now that LinkedIn had got the product and user experience right, the time was ripe to test ads in the mobile environment.