LinkedIn hits 100M members in time for IPO

The company nearly doubles its users in one year

Just ahead of its imminent IPO, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner announced in a blog post Tuesday morning that LinkedIn now has 100 million members. For a little perspective, this time last year, the company announced that it had just hit 60 million members, which means that in the last year, the company's user base has nearly doubled. The career networking site is growing at roughly one million members per week, said Weiner, which translates to more than one new member per second. 

And with a reach that extends to more than 200 countries, it makes sense that 56 million LinkedIn members come from outside of the United States. Brazil takes the lead as the fastest growing country in the LinkedIn network, growing 428% in 2010, while Mexico came in second with 178% growth. 

Weiner also notes in the blog post that 73 of the Fortune 100 companies use the network, with the most represented companies being eBay, Cisco, Apple, Amazon, Campbell's, and EMC2. 

LinkedIn's user base has grown significantly, and 2010 saw a near doubling of users compared to 2009, with registered members reaching 90 million, compared to 55 million in 2009. But the company has admitted that it has far more registered members than it does active members (i.e. those who use the site regularly), and only a small minority of the total LinkedIn network accounts for the majority of its page views. 

This could potentially pose a problem for the company's overall aim of providing a social network for hiring and recruitment, as those inactive members are likely leaving up outdated information, which diminishes the service's relevance as a place for career networking. 

As the company explains in its S-1: "For example, customers of our hiring solutions may not find members that meet their qualifications or may misidentify a candidate as having such qualifications, which could result in mismatches that erode customer confidence in our solutions. Similarly, incomplete or outdated member information would diminish the ability of our marketing solutions customers to reach their target audiences and our ability to provide our customers with valuable insights."

The announcement comes as LinkedIn is preparing for its big IPO, which was announced with the filing of an S-1 form in January. Earlier this month, LInkedIn filed an amendment to its S-1 to account for its higher than anticipated revenues for 2010, which reached an impressive $243 million and allowed the company to pocket a hefty $20 million in net income. 

Image source: LinkedIn.com