Summary of Highlights from LinkedIn's Q4 Earnings Conference Call

Below are some highlights from LinkedIn's

LNKD

fourth-quarter conference call:

“Over the past two years we have focused on deepening our relationship with current customers and increasing our customer footprint.”
Existing customers contribute a lot to revenue growth.
Linkedin has unique value to job seekers by engaging passive candidates with our recommendation engine.
Self served ad platform is performing well year-over-year.
In less than two quarters, sponsored updates went from $0 dollars of revenue to less than 2% of total revenue.
We are pleased with the traction of sales solutions
In its first month of launch, lead connector has already turned into our most engaging sales tool.
Operating cash flow was 426 million for this year compared to 267 million for last year.
Our goal is to host Linkedin on self-sustaining data centers.
We planned on building three self-managed data centers, one is already built, another is being built this year. The last one will be built the year after that.
At the completion of this project Linkedin plans on resuming a normal capex level
In 2014 several large investments will be made
Investment in talent solutions, mostly in core so Linkedin can have a focused s&b product
Investment in deepening relationships with existing customers
Investment in marketing, mostly in scale within sponsored updates
Linkedin is learning from sponsored updates to and applying the lessons to other parts of their business. Over the course of the year there will be investments in consumer experience and a new type of account for public users at a lower rate.
Linkedin's major investments will be in job relevancy, scale, publishing platform, and China.
Linkedin is still heavily investing in itself.
The proportion of international accounts for sales solutions continues to grow, it is in the low 30% range for now
Linkedin is in a strong leadership position in the market and wants to grow that share over time.
As we broaden our membership we will see a shift in job listings that will bring new categories, such as knowledge workers, service workers, and laborers.
Linkedin's mobile growth is dramatically outpacing growth on desktop.
North of 40% of Linkedin's engagement is on mobile.
New members are less engaged because they are less connected as they mature they become more and more engaged.
There are signs that the most engaged users are becoming more engaged.
Linkedin is planning on growing its headcount; mostly in r&d and some in marketing.
Linkedin is planning on scaling sales solutions and infrastructure.
Acquisition of Bright adds incremental cost because no material revenue is expected from the acquisition this year.
Linkedin wants to be very thoughtful with further localization in China, and if Linkedin continues it must deal with government regulations such as content censorship.
China will play a big role in Linkedin's ability to create value for the international market.
This year there will be a larger dedicated r&d team for sales solutions.
There is still a large value opportunity in Linkedin's existing accounts.

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