LinkedIn Hits 300 Million Users

LinkedIn announced this morning that the company now has 300 million registered users worldwide, over half of which come from outside the U.S. Stateside, the site has 100 million members, its says. LinkedIn revealed these and other figures via a company blog post, in addition to laying out its vision for growing its presence through strategic initiatives on mobile, in Asia, and beyond.

These numbers, to be clear, represent registered users, not those who visit the site on a monthly basis, like the figures competing social networks tend to report. LinkedIn’s monthly actives figure is much lower – 187 million monthly uniques in Q4. The number also indicates that the company is still challenged to keep users’ attention outside of those times when they’re updating resumes or hunting for new jobs, it seems.

However, LinkedIn has been busy trying to change that, with acquisitions like SlideShare and the Pulse newsreader app, and a growing suite of mobile applications, including a universal contacts app and new recruiter app, for example.

The company today says it understands mobile is critical and of increasing importance to LinkedIn’s growth, noting:

Later this year, we are going to hit our mobile moment, where mobile accounts for more than 50 percent of all global traffic. Already, our members in dozens of locations including Costa Rica, Malaysia, Singapore, Sweden, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, use LinkedIn more on their mobile devices than on their desktop computers. Every day we see an average of 15 million profile views, 1.45 million job views and 44,000 job applications in over 200 countries through mobile.

Also this year, LinkedIn grew its footprint in China with the launch of a beta version of a new Simplified Chinese site which it hopes will reach the country’s 140 million professionals.

In an infographic posted to LinkedIn’s site, the company offers a few other details about its site’s metrics and demographics, including the male/female split (56%/44%), top locations (U.S., India, Brazil, Great Britain, Canada, in order), top industries (I.T., Hospitals and Health Care, Construction, Education Mgmt., Accounting), and more.