LinkedIn Announces First Quarter 06 Results

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 28, 2016 - LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD), the network on the Internet, reported results for the first quarter of 2016. The transcript with prepared remarks is contained within this press release. In addition, a supplemental presentation will be made available on the investor relations section of the LinkedIn website at http://investors.linkedin.com.

LinkedIn delivered strong financial results and growth across our core product lines, said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. As a result of our new mobile experience, members are increasing their activity on LinkedIn, helping drive strong levels of engagement across the platform."

Total revenue increased 35% year-over-year to $861 million.

Talent Solutions revenue increased 41% year-over-year to $558 million.

Hiring revenue contributed $502 million in revenue, up 27% year-over-year.

Learning & Development contributed $55 million in revenue.

Marketing Solutions revenue increased 29% year-over-year to $154 million.

Premium Subscriptions revenue increased 22% year-over-year to $149 million.

Adjusted EBITDA was $222 million, or 26% of revenue.

GAAP net loss attributable to common stockholders was $46 million and non-GAAP net income was $99 million.

GAAP diluted EPS was $(0.35), compared to last years performance of $(0.34). Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.74, compared to $0.57 last year.

"We are off to a good start in 2016 with strength in our core and emerging businesses," said Steve Sordello, CFO of LinkedIn. "We continue to invest heavily in innovation and in our core products, while at the same time driving focus and scale to enable growth and leverage across the business."

Business Outlook

LinkedIn is providing guidance for the second quarter and full year 2016. Further details are in the transcript below and a supplemental presentation will be made available on the investor relations section of our website at http://investors.linkedin.com:

Q2 2016 Guidance: Revenue is expected to range between $885 million and $890 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $225 million and $230 million. Non-GAAP EPS is expected to range between $0.74 and $0.77. The company expects depreciation of approximately $93 million, amortization of approximately $44 million, and stock-based compensation of approximately $150 million. The company also expects approximately 134 million GAAP fully-diluted weighted shares and 136 million non-GAAP fully-diluted weighted shares.

Full Year 2016 Guidance: Revenue is expected to range between $3.65 billion and $3.70 billion. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $985 million and $1.005 billion. Non-GAAP EPS is expected to range between $3.30 and $3.40. The company expects depreciation of approximately $395 million, amortization of approximately $173 million, and stock-based compensation of approximately $580 million. The company also expects approximately 135 million GAAP fully-diluted weighted shares and 136 million non-GAAP fully-diluted weighted shares.

Prepared Remarks - Jeff Weiner, CEO LinkedIn Corporation

Q1 was a strong start to the year as LinkedIn once again delivered results that exceeded our plan. I want to highlight three key themes from the quarter. First, engagement materially strengthened across our member platform, driven by our new flagship experience. Second, our core monetization products - Recruiter and Sponsored Updates - showed continued growth, while our emerging strategic investments such as Sales Navigator and Learning & Development continue to show progress. And third, we saw significant improvements in our ability to increase ROI across the business.

For Q1, overall revenues grew 35% to $861 million. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $222 million, and non-GAAP EPS of $0.74 cents.

In the quarter, cumulative members grew 19% to 433 million, our strongest net-add quarter since the beginning of 2014. Our core operating metrics saw accelerated growth - unique visiting members grew 9% to an average of 106 million members a month and member page views grew 34%. Page views per unique visiting member hit an all-time high in Q1, with 23% year-over-year growth.

Q1 marked the first full quarter for our new mobile flagship experience, and we are pleased with the performance thus far. Members are engaging at record levels with the more relevant and comprehensive feed. During the quarter, viral actions increased more than 80%, daily shares were up nearly 40%, and traffic to third-party publishers grew more than 150%. We also continue to see significant growth in other core engagement metrics, such as profile edits, connections made, and messages sent.

Additionally, we saw record levels of activity in our jobs products. Total jobs unique visitors hit a record high in Q1, up more than 20% versus last year. Job applicants from our mobile flagship app also reached record highs, up more than 50%.

As job seekers find more value on LinkedIn, our hiring business directly benefits.

For Talent Solutions, in Q1 we strengthened our core Recruiter product while also laying the groundwork for the roll-out of a number of emerging growth drivers.

The next generation of Recruiter, unveiled late last year, is the foundation of our long-term growth strategy. Recruiters are experiencing greater success with the new product, and effectiveness has increased substantially. Currently, the number of candidates viewed per search is up more than 40%, and InMails per search are up more than 30%. By the end of Q2, we expect the majority of our customers to have converted to the new version of Recruiter.

Additionally, newer products such as Referrals and Connectifier are coming online to help customers drive a greater share of hiring through LinkedIn. And the increased member engagement with jobs is already delivering a stronger pipeline of potential candidates to our existi

LINK:	http://press.linkedin.com/site-resources/news-releases/2016/linkedin-a...
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