05/04/2016 | XING

XING profits grew by 30 per cent during first quarter

  • Total revenues rose by 21 per cent to €34.3 million
  • Highest single-quarter member growth since company was founded
  • XING CEO Vollmoeller: "All the signs are pointing to growth"

Hamburg, 4 May 2016 – XING AG, operator of the leading online business network in German-speaking countries, maintained last year's momentum and continued its growth course during the first quarter of 2016. Total revenues rose by 21 per cent, profits grew by 30 per cent Following adjustment for a non-recurring currency effect from the previous year, total revenues for the first quarter of 2016 increased by 21 per cent to €34.3 million. Every segment of the business (XING started reporting in a new segment structure as of January 2016) contributed towards this growth. The B2C segment, which largely reports revenues for paid memberships, grew significantly by 15 per cent to €18.3 million (Q1 2015: €15.8 million). B2B E-Recruiting, which comprises revenues generated by selling the XING TalentManager (active recruiting), job ads (passive recruiting) and the Employer Branding Profiles, was the main revenue growth driver. This segment grew by 28 per cent during the first three months of this year and posted revenues of €12.2 million (Q1 2015: €9.5 million). The B2B segment Advertising & Events, which reports revenues from advertising and ticketing, posted an increase of 18 per cent to €2.9 million for the period under review (Q1 2015: €2.5 million). Due to the dynamic revenue growth and disproportionately low increase in costs, the EBITDA grew by 27 per cent to €10.4 million (€8.2 million). Profits even rose by 30 per cent, taking the total for Q1 to €5.3 million (€4.1 million). Highest single-quarter member growth since company was founded XING passed the 10 million-member mark during the first quarter of 2016. This means that as of the start of this year, every fifth worker in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is now a XING member. Overall, during the first quarter XING welcomed almost 470,000 new members, which is the highest figure in the history of the company. As well as conventional memberships, XING offers additional services such as quick and easy business event management. When including users of such services, XING had over 10.6 million users as of the end of the first quarter. On top of that, XING acquired around 23,000 new paying members in German-speaking countries between January and March, which is the highest quarterly growth for six years. This means that more than 903,000 paying members were using XING AG’s paid products as of the end of March. XING CEO Vollmoeller: "All the signs are pointing to growth" Thomas Vollmoeller, CEO at XING AG, said: "We got off to a great start to the year. The signs are pointing to growth in every business segment. We're welcoming more new members than ever before as a XING profile has now become an essential part of today's world of work. Over the last few months we've put a number of key pieces in place in preparation for the future." In line with this, in April XING acquired the eqipia platform, the leading intelligent employee referral programme in Switzerland. Being the most effective recruiting channel, employee referrals are gaining ground in the world of human resources. XING now offers the eqipia ReferralManager, a digital solution for this complex process. Companies benefit from this as they receive better qualified candidates at much lower cost and in far less time than via conventional channels. XING's acquisition of eqipia underlines its position as a pioneer of innovative recruiting solutions and represents another step towards future growth. XING also introduced a new service to its Premium members in March. XING Jobs now provides salary estimates for 350,000 jobs ads that are based on analyses, surveys or information provided by the companies themselves. This is still a beta service, but the plan is to expand this service during the course of the year and introduce it to the XING Jobs apps for Android and iOS, while also continuing to increase the number of job ads with salary estimates. At the start of the year XING was also on course for growth in terms of usage. The network reported a new unique user record by passing the seven million mark for the first time ever in January (source: AGOF digital facts 2016-01). About XING The leading online business network in German-speaking countries supports its members in mastering the transformations taking place in the world of work. XING helps its more than 10 million members to balance their professional and private life as well as possible within an environment defined by a lack of skilled workers, digitalisation and changing values. To this end, members can visit XING Jobs to look for vacancies that appeal to them, stay up-to-date with news offers by XING, or browse the German-language portal XING spielraum to find out about the trends and changes taking place in the new world of work. At the start of 2015, XING added Jobbörse.com, the largest jobs search engine in German-speaking countries, to its portfolio. Before that, XING had acquired kununu, which as the principal employer review platform in German-speaking countries served to strengthen XING’s leading position within the field of social recruiting. XING was founded in Hamburg, Germany, in 2003, has been publicly listed since 2006, and listed on the TecDAX since September 2011. Members can meet and exchange views in around 80,000 groups, while also getting together at more than 150,000 business-related events every year. More than 10.6 million people use the XING platforms in the core German-speaking market, and over 10 million of them are XING members. XING has almost 800 employees at offices in Hamburg, Munich, Aschaffenburg, Barcelona and Vienna. Visit www.xing.com for more information.


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Christoph Stanek

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