LinkedIn Case Analysis

LinkedIn is a business and employment-oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Founded on December 28, 2002, and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking, including employers posting jobs and job seekers posting their CVs. As of 2015, most of the company’s revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals. As of October 2018, LinkedIn had 590 million registered members in 200 countries, out of which more than 250 million active users. LinkedIn allows members to create profiles and “connections” to each other in an online social network which may represent real-world professional relationships. Members can invite anyone to become a connection. The “gated-access approach” is intended to build trust among the service’s members. LinkedIn participated in the EU’s International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles.

The site has an Alexa Internet ranking as the 34th most popular website. According to the New York Times, US high school students are now creating LinkedIn profiles to include with their college applications. Based in the United States, the site is, as of 2013, available in 24 languages, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Korean, Indonesian, Malay, and Tagalog. LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol “LNKD”.

On June 13, 2016, Microsoft announced plans to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. The acquisition was completed on December 8, 2016. According to the SEC filing, “The transaction resulted in the payment of approximately $26.4 billion in cash merger consideration.”