LinkedIn hits 300 mn milestone, 50% traffic to come from mobile

Users from Costa Rica, Malaysia, Singapore, Sweden, UAE and the UK access website more on their mobile devices

With over 300 million members, professional networking site LinkedIn is betting big on mobile handsets to drive growth, as 50% of its traffic is expected to come from handheld devices.

"We know mobile is critical. Later this year, we are going to hit our mobile moment, where mobile accounts for more than 50% of all global traffic," LinkedIn Senior Vice President (Products and User Experience) Deep Nishar said.

LinkedIn users from locations like Costa Rica, Malaysia, Singapore, Sweden, UAE and the UK access the website more on their mobile devices than on their desktop computers.

On an average, 15 million profiles, 1.45 million jobs and 44,000 job applications are viewed everyday in over 200 countries through mobile.

"LinkedIn will continue to invest in building out what can be offered to the members in key countries," he said in his blogpost.

There are now more than 300 million LinkedIn members in the world and more than half of these members come from outside of the US, Nishar said.

Launched in May 2003, LinkedIn is headquartered in California and has 100 million members in the US. India accounted for over 24 million (announced in February this year).

"While this is an exciting moment, we still have a long way to go to realise our vision of creating economic opportunity for every one of the 3.3 billion people in the global workforce," Nishar said.

He added that the company is working on delivering personalised experiences built around members and their identity, network and knowledge.

LinkedIn started developing multiple mobile apps two years back to fit the different needs of its diverse memberbase.

The company has also partnered with handset makers like Apple, Nokia and Samsung and is working on adding more strategic partners.

The US-listed firm allows members to create professional circles to help in their career path and allows employers and recruiters to connect with people who have the skills they are looking for.