LinkedIn Reports Quarterly Loss

The largest professional network on the internet with about 380 million members reported second quarter revenues of $712m (£456m, €650m), an increase of 33% compared to the same quarter in 2014. Additionally, economists expected only a $680 million growth in revenue for Q2, while in reality the company pulled off $712 million which means a 33 percent growth.

LinkedIn’s chief executive Jeff Weiner believes that the recent acquisition may turn out to be a valuable asset and one of the company’s “most transformational initiatives” because it may lure even more users to the site while making the old ones more loyal.

The story was the same with earnings per share, which came in at 55 for the quarter, a whopping 25 cents ahead of the 30 cents per share analysts had estimated.

LinkedIn Corp. shares fell after the company attributed a bump in its annual revenue forecast to its acquisition of the education website Lynda.com, raising concerns that growth is slowing in its main business.

Premium subscription revenue was $128m, an increase of 22% compared to the same period past year.

LinkedIn published much better-than-expected second quarter financial results after the bell on Thursday.

With 52% of all traffic to LinkedIn coming from mobile, the platform saw a staggering 30% dip in display ad revenue year over year, as CFO Steve Sordello noted a focus on native content marketing and lead generation.

GAAP net loss attributable to common stockholders was $68 million; Non-GAAP net income was $71 million.

The firm stated revenue in its Talents Solutions enterprise, which sells providers to recruiters, rose 38 % to $ 443 million within the three months ended June 30.

Facebook, meanwhile, has almost 1.5 billion monthly users, but its high-flying stock also took a hit as investors sought to take profit and might have had some concerns about the company’s soaring spending.

LinkedIn, which gets 38 percent of its revenue from outside the United States, said that excluding the impact of the strong dollar its revenue would have risen 38 percent.

The company said its China-based site now has more than 10 million members.

In April, the company’s stock plunged by about 25 percent after it lowered its revenue estimates for the second-quarter despite beating Wall Street’s expectations from January to March. Analyst now expect the company to earn $1.93 per share on revenue of $2.91 billion for the full year 2015. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected revenue of $750.4 million.