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.
India's booming mobile user base-around 700-plus million and growing rapidly-is a clear opportunity for LinkedIn. More importantly, according to estimates of GSMA, a global mobile services lobby, India is expected to become the second-largest mobile broadband market globally, with 367 million connections in four years, compared to 20-30 million today.
"The Indian market has shown a real propensity for social connectivity," says Weiner. "So, in that regard, it is not surprising." He adds that LinkedIn has been able to reach critical mass with English - unlike other markets such as China, where local language is the key to building a successful Internet business.
That may explain why India is a larger market for LinkedIn than China, where it has barely a million members. LinkedIn has also been trying to promote its B2B business. Homegrown firms such as Wipro and the Indian arm of multinationals such as Cisco, SAP and Huawei use LinkedIn as a platform to connect with employees, vendors and business partners. Weiner will be keen to press home this advantage as he seeks a stronger foothold in this market.
Unlike many other software firms that hire in the hundreds, if not thousands, LinkedIn has been flying below the radar in India. It barely has a 100 people across its offices in Mumbai, Delhi and its R&D unit in Bangalore. This number will only rise incrementally, rather than in the dozens. The strategy is not to focus on R&D (like many of its larger rivals), but on India as a market.
For the moment, the US accounts for two-thirds of LinkedIn's business and "international", including fast-growing businesses in India, account for the rest. To drive its international business, LinkedIn wants to not just increase the number of users, but also deepen its relationships with them.
For example, this February, it launched India-specific pricing for some of its recruitment products such as LinkedIn Recruiter, Jobs Network and Talent Direct. LinkedIn wants to mine the mountain of data it generates to improve the quality of its recommendations (who to connect to on the site), as well as convert its recruiting business-the firm's mainstay in India-into a more dynamic one.
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