LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD)
Q2 2014 Earnings Conference Call
July 31, 2013 5:00 PM ET
Executives
Matt Sonefeldt – IR
Jeff Weiner – CEO
Steve Sordello – CFO
Analysts
Mark Mahaney – RBC Capital Markets
Heath Terry – Goldman Sachs
Eric Sheridan – UBS
Gene Munster – Piper Jaffray
Mark May – Citigroup
Robert Peck – SunTrust
Kerry Rice – Needham
Brian Pitz – Jefferies
Andrew McNellis – Evercore
Doug Anmuth – JP Morgan
Aaron Kessler – Raymond James
Dan Salmon – BMO Capital Markets
Operator
Good afternoon. My name is Hope, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the LinkedIn Second Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions).
Thank you. Mr. Mr. Matt Sonefeldt, you may begin your conference.
Matt Sonefeldt – IR
Good afternoon. Welcome to LinkedIn’s second quarter of 2014 earnings call. Joining me today to discuss our results are CEO Jeff Weiner, and CFO Steve Sordello.
Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the course of this conference call, management will make forward-looking statements which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. These include statements relating to expected member growth and engagement, our product offerings including mobile and our product deployment process, the results of our R&D efforts, revenue including revenue growth rates of our three product lines Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, and Premium Subscriptions, adjusted EBITDA, depreciation and amortization, stock based compensation, earnings per share, share dilution, taxes, the product mix between online and field sales, and other drivers of our business. Actual results may differ materially from the results predicted and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. A discussion of risks and uncertainties related to our business is contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in particular the section entitled Risk Factors in our quarterly and annual reports, and we refer you to these filings.
Also, I would like to remind you that during the course of this call, we may discuss some non-GAAP measures in talking about the company’s performance. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in tables in our earnings release. This conference call is also being broadcast on the internet and is available through the Investor Relations section of the LinkedIn web site.
Lastly, this quarter on our Investor Relations web site, we have included supplemental slides discussing our Talent Solutions market opportunity and go-to-market. We have also included in our selected company metrics and financials table, history of our internally measured member metrics, the recasted history of Talent and Marketing Solutions revenue, and a field versus online revenue breakout for Talent Solutions.
With that, I will turn the call over to our CEO, Jeff Weiner.
Jeff Weiner
Thank you, Matt, and welcome to today’s conference call. I’ll start by summarizing the operating results for the second quarter of 2014, and I’ll recap some of the key milestones that highlight the success of our strategy. I’ll then turn it over to Steve for a more detailed look at the numbers and outlook.
LinkedIn delivered strong financial results in the second quarter, while maintaining continued investment in our member and customer offerings. We made significant progress against several key strategic priorities, including increasing the scale of job opportunities on LinkedIn; expanding our professional publishing platform; adding to our growing portfolio of mobile apps; and successfully positioning our Marketing Solutions business for the future through the growth of Sponsored Updates.
We are also excited about today’s launch of the all new Sales Navigator and last week’s acquisition of Bizo. Both underscore the opportunities we have to continue building a scalable, diverse business, that adds value for our members and customers based on the critical mass of the LinkedIn network.
For Q2, overall revenues grew 47% to $534 million. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $145 million, and non-GAAP EPS of $0.51. We continue to see healthy member engagement dynamics across LinkedIn, especially in light of the challenging year-over-year comparison that we discussed last quarter.
During Q2, cumulative members grew 32% to 313 million. Internally-measured unique visiting members to LinkedIn grew 13% to an average of 84 million per month, and internal member pageviews grew 22% percent to 25 billion for the quarter, well ahead of unique member growth.
Organic engagement is one area of particular strength, driven by our mobile and content efforts. Homepage traffic, as measured by unique visiting members, continues to outpace overall site traffic growth, increasing approximately 40% faster over the past year.
Mobile also continues to drive a growing share of engagement, growing more than three times as fast as overall uniques. Mobile now accounts for 45% of total traffic to LinkedIn. The value we deliver to members remains consistent. We enable professionals to build and manage their identities; create and leverage their professional networks; and gain the knowledge they need to be more successful in their careers, across multiple screens and devices.
We want to highlight a few of our efforts since the start of the year that deliver across these value propositions. Within identity, in June, we revamped the design of profiles on LinkedIn’s desktop site to make them more visually distinctive and personalized; and earlier this week we launched a major redesign of the LinkedIn profile. The new profile, first introduced on our flagship mobile app, helps members define their professional identities more quickly and effectively. It adds important contextual information, including Recent Activity such as updates and long-form posts, and makes it easier for members to ensure their profiles are up-to-date.
Changes to LinkedIn Profiles help members better showcase their professional brands and get more value out of their LinkedIn networks; and now they can be found more effectively through Galene, our new search architecture rolled out in June. Pageviews to content driven by search have since accelerated.
Specific to network, earlier this month, we unveiled Connected on iOS, the newest mobile app in our growing multi app portfolio. Connected enables LinkedIn members to strengthen their professional relationships by delivering timely updates and opportunities to engage with the people in their networks. Connected has quickly become a top app in the App store business category. Early data shows that active users of the app are using it on average more than four days per week, suggesting that Connected has already become an integral part of each work day.
We also continue to grow the network through international expansion; 67% percent of LinkedIn members come from outside the United States. After launching our Simplified Chinese site in February, China has now become our fastest growing major market for new members over the past several months.
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