XING 2015: Highest member growth in the company’s history

• Total revenues grew by 21 per cent, profits almost tripled
• US joint venture planned between XING subsidiary kununu and Monster
• Executive Board proposes dividend increase and payment of a special dividend to Supervisory Board

Hamburg, 22 February 2016 – XING AG, operator of the leading online business network in German-speaking countries, is today publishing its preliminary results for 2015. According to these preliminary results, the company enjoyed record member growth and revenues. Total revenues grew by 21 per cent, profits almost tripled XING’s total revenues for 2015 came to €123 million, an increase of 21 per cent over the previous year (€101 million). The EBITDA rose by 25 per cent to €36.6 million, while profits grew by 186 per cent to €17.6 million (€6.2 million). Profits were affected in the year before due to a non-operating extraordinary impairment on an investment. Every segment of the business contributed to revenue growth. The main source of revenues was the paid memberships business, which grew by 19 per cent to €73.0 million (FY 2014: €61.3 million). In total, XING acquired almost 46,000 new paying members during 2015, with over 880,000 members using XING’s paid products (Premium and ProJobs). The E-Recruiting segment was again the most important growth driver with revenues growing by 26 per cent year on year to €41.4 million (FY 2014: €32.9 million). Revenues from Events, the smallest revenue-generating segment, rose by 22 per cent to €6.2 million (FY 2014: €5.1 million). Thomas Vollmoeller, CEO at XING AG, said: “2015 was a year of growth. We saw significant growth in every segment of the business. We also further accelerated member growth over the past year. It’s great to see that this positive trend is continuing this year as we're now already close to the 10 million member mark.” Highest member growth in the company’s history In total, around 1.6 million people registered on the platform as new members, which is the highest figure the company has ever seen in a single year. As of the end of 2015, XING had 9.6 million members in its core German-speaking market. By including XING Events users, the user base reaches a total of 10.1 million. XING introduced a range of products and services during the 2015 financial year in order to further optimise its portfolio and make itself even more appealing to members and new customers alike. In doing so, XING has entered completely new markets and industries. One such example is the launch of the new XING Jobs, which provides users in German-speaking countries with a single platform for current job vacancies. In contrast to conventional job boards, XING Jobs is strictly aimed at modern knowledge workers by offering vacancies that follow conventional career paths as well as part-time jobs and vacancies for people in search of meaning. Since the new XING Jobs was launched, traffic levels there have more than doubled. The new Jobs section is the result of acquiring and subsequently integrating jobbörse.com. XING took over the company at the start of 2015 and expanded its Jobs section based on the acquired crawling technology so that users now have access to around 1 million jobs there. In the autumn of 2015, XING developed and launched a new journalistic offering: XING Klartext. This is a new offering where experts and well-known people can exclusively voice their opinions on current and controversial issues related to business and careers. XING members can then start up and join a debate. This journalistic offering is provided a seven-person editorial team headed by publisher Roland Tichy, former editor-in-chief at Wirtschaftswoche, and editor-in-chief Jennifer Lachman, formerly of the Financial Times Deutschland. In the months that have passed since its launch, Klartext articles have already been clicked on more than 1.2 million times. XING’s total news offering currently has a reach of around 2.6 million unique users per month. Thomas Vollmoeller said: “We’re constantly adding new innovations to our portfolio. We consider it important to provide our members with support and guidance for a working world that’s currently undergoing major change. We provide a personal network, access to career opportunities and personally relevant information so that XING members can gain maximum benefit from the wide range of opportunities this change brings with it, while also ensuring that XING members are well equipped to tackle the challenges it presents. Our member growth shows that we’re on the right path here, which is why I’m extremely confident that we’ll reach our goal of doubling our 2012 revenues in 2016.” US joint venture planned between XING subsidiary kununu and MonsterAs well as continuing XING’s growth strategy in German-speaking countries, the Austrian subsidiary kununu is also striking out in a new direction. To this end, kununu has agreed on a joint venture in the US with the leading jobs board Monster in order to trial a joint offering on the US market. The aim of this is to generate more employer transparency on the US labour market. To do this, kununu’s expertise when it comes to employer reviews and employer branding will be united with Monster’s knowledge of the local market, marketing expertise and reach. This joint venture will be based in Boston and subject to approval by the competition authority. XING AG Executive Board proposes dividend increase and payment of a special dividend Today the XING Executive Board decided to put forward a proposal to the Supervisory Board to increase the regular dividend from EUR 0.92 per share to EUR 1.03 per share on the basis of the Company's preliminary unaudited figures for the 2015 fiscal year. The Executive Board also decided to pay an additional special dividend of EUR 1.50 per share. XING's liquid assets of EUR 78.0 million as of the end of 2015 and its cash-generative business model enable it to pay out both a regular dividend and a special dividend without any change to its continued growth strategy. After confirmation of the audited consolidated financial statements, the profit appropriation proposal is to be presented to the Annual General Meeting for resolution on the appropriation of the net income. Subject to approval by the Supervisory Board at its plenary meeting to be held on 23 March 2016, and following approval by Shareholders at the Annual General Meeting to be held on 2 June 2016, the total dividend payment will amount to around EUR 14.2 million. About XING XING is the social network for business contacts. Almost 10 million members use the online platform in its core German-speaking market. XING is a platform where professionals from all kinds of different industries can meet up, find jobs, colleagues, new assignments, cooperation partners, experts, generate business ideas and get informed about latest industry topics. Members can meet and exchange views in over 74,000 specialist groups, while also getting together at networking events. The platform is operated by XING AG, which was founded in Hamburg, Germany, in 2003, has been publicly listed since 2006, and listed on the TecDAX since September 2011. In December 2010, XING acquired amiando AG, a Munich-based company and Europe’s leading provider of online event management and ticketing. Since the end of 2013 the company has been trading under the name XING EVENTS GmbH. The acquisition of kununu, the leading platform for employer reviews in German-speaking countries, allows XING to extend its position as the social recruiting market leader. At the start of 2015 XING also acquired Intelligence Competence Center AG, including its Jobbörse.com website which is the largest jobs search engine in German-speaking countries with over 2.5 million jobs. Visit www.xing.com for more information.