101. LinkedIn Shares fall off a Cliff!

Now that we have passed 100 episodes, I thought it was time to give LinkedInformed a makeover. You will notice we have a new logo and the introduction music is different but more importantly we have a new format for the show.

I will no longer have a specific news section but I will obviously always talk each week about any important events that have occurred, if nothing important has happened I will focus the episode on a specific subject.

This will never be an interview show as such but I do plan to conduct more interviews from now on.

I hope you like the changes.

Main Story

This week I focussed my attention on LinkedIn’s Q4 and full year financial results.

A quick overview

• 
  
• Q4 revenue increased by 34% (vs 2014 Q4) to $862m and that brought the full year to $2,991.
• 
  
• 
  
• Talent solutions contributed 62% of revenue (this includes Lynda) compared to 57% last year
• 
  
• 
  
• Talent solution showed a 32% increase on last year - mainly coming from the field sales team.
• 
  
• 
  
• Online job postings continued to drop.
• 
  
• 
  
• Marketing solutions contributed 21% of revenue achieving a growth of 20% (25% last year)
• 
  
• 
  
• Sponsored updates are effectively holding this revenue stream up, showing growth of 85%!
• 
  
• 
  
• Display advertising continues to plummet, now only contributing 15% (30% last year)
• 
  
• 
  
• Lead Accelerator product has failed and will be retired this year.
• 
  
• 
  
• Premium subscriptions (including sales solutions) contributed 17% of the revenue
• 
  
• 
  
• Sales Navigator is the only bright light in this revenue stream and now represents 38% of all premium subscriptions.
• 
  
• 
  
• More than half of Sales Navigator sales are generated by the field sales team.
• 
  
• 
  
• As a results Sales Solutions will now be reported separately (at last!)
• 
  
• 
  
• General subscriptions have fallen to an all time low, single digit % growth.
• 
  

You can read the full report here.

Here are a variety of articles about the results;

• 
  
• LinkedIn stock plummets 43% on tepid outlook
• 
  
• 
  
• SHAREHOLDER ALERT: Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC Announces Investigation of LinkedIn Corporation
• 
  
• 
  
• Five Reasons LinkedIn Had Its Worst Day Ever
• 
  
• 
  
• I also mentioned this article from Itai Leshem
• 
  

When talking about the results I also mentioned a report in the FT about how Glass door may be thinking about competing with LinkedIn.

Cool Thing

This weeks...