XING

New Work SE
Type of businessSocietas Europaea
Type of site
Professional network service
Available inSimplified Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
Traded asFWBNWO
FoundedAugust 2003; 20 years ago (2003-08)
Hamburg, Germany
HeadquartersHamburg, Germany
Key peoplePetra von Strombeck (CEO)

Dr. Patrick Alberts (CPO)
Ingo Chu (CFO)
Jens Pape (CTO)

Martin Weiss (Chairman of the supervisory board)
Revenue
Total assets€273.5 million (2018)[2]
Total equity€98.3 million (2018)
Employees2327 (2020)
URLwww.xing.com
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedNovember 2003; 20 years ago (2003-11)

XING is a Hamburg-based career-oriented social networking site, operated by New Work SE (until mid-2019 XING SE) and owned mainly by Hubert Burda Media.[3][4]

The site is primarily focused on the German-speaking market, alongside XING Spain, and competes with the American platform LinkedIn.[5][6]

Company history[edit]

OPEN Business Club AG was founded in August 2003 in Hamburg, Germany by Lars Hinrichs.[7][8] Its official debut was 1 November 2003. It was renamed XING in November 2006.

In its early years, the site pursued a global strategy; however, since 2012, XING has focused on the German-speaking market, as 76% of all XING page views come from Germany and 90% come from the D-A-CH area.[9]

Leadership[edit]

Lars Hinrich led the company as CEO until 2009, when he was succeeded by Stefan Groß-Selbeck.[10] Thomas Vollmoeller has served from 2012[11] and was succeeded by Petra von Strombeck in 2020.

Number of users[edit]

As of April 2019, XING reported 16 million members, up from 10 million members in the D-A-CH area in March 2016, which at that time included 880,000 premium members.[12]

Ownership and acquisitions[edit]

In November 2009, Hubert Burda Media acquired 25.1% of XING, becoming its main shareholder.[13][14][15] In 2010, XING acquired online event management company Amiando, changing its name to XING EVENTS.[16] In 2012, Burda increased its shareholding to over 50%.[17] In 2013, XING acquired Austrian e-recruiting company Kununu.[18] In 2015, XING announced a cooperation project with eyeson,[19] a unified communications provider.[20] In 2017, XING acquired global expat network InterNations and Austrian recruitment company Prescreen.[21] In April 2019, XING paid €22 million for Honeypot, a Berlin-based IT job platform.[22]

Proportion of holding

(in %)

Shareholder
54.84 Burda Digital
5.04 Oppenheimer Holdings
3.02 Wasatch Advisors
2.98 Union Investment (majority for DZ Bank )
2.95 DWS Investments (majority for Deutsche Bank )
2.83 Norges Bank
32.92 free float

IPO[edit]

XING became the first Web 2.0 company to go public in Europe,[23] debuting on 7 December 2006 at an issue price of 30 Euros per share.

Website[edit]

The platform offers personal profiles, groups, discussion forums, event coordination, and other common social community features. Basic membership is free, but many core functions, like searching for people with specific qualifications or messaging people to whom one is not already connected, can only be accessed by the premium members. Premium membership comes at a monthly fee from €6.35 to €9.95 depending on the billing interval you choose and the country you are from.[24] The platform uses https and has a rigid privacy and no-spam policy.

XING has a special Ambassador program for each city or region around the world with a substantial constituency. The Ambassadors hold local events that promote the use of social networking as a business tool, letting members introduce business ideas to one another.

XING also offers the system for closed communities, called Enterprise groups with their own access paths and interface designs. The platform serves as the infrastructure for corporate groups, including IBM, McKinsey, Accenture and others.[25]

About 76% of all pageviews come from Germany, 90% from the D-A-CH area (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).[26]

As of 15 September 2017 XING has changed its legal status to become a Societas Europaea.[27]

Revenue[edit]

XING Sales (€)[28]
year Sales in € million Employees
2008 35.3 174
2009 45.1 265
2010 54.3 306
2011 66.2 456
2012 73.3 513
2013 84.8 571
2014 101.4 649
2015 123.0 792
2016 148.5 961
2017 187.8 1,290
2018 235.1 1,567
2019 269.2 1,778
2020 276.5 1,787
2021 284.5 1,712
2022 313.4 1,887

XING Mobile[edit]

Xing.com Mobile allows users to access some of its functions using a mobile phone, PDA or smartphone. Standards supported: HTML 3.2, XHTML MP 1.0, WML 1.1.

XING plug-ins[edit]

Xing.com plugins are available for free download that allow contact synchronization with Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook,[29] Windows Address Book and Outlook Express. It also allows manual CSV File import–export and has a Firefox search plug-in.

Recruitment[edit]

Since October 2007, XING has run a job marketplace for candidates and recruiters. Alongside fixed-price job ads, XING was one of the first German job boards to use a pay-per-click payment model, where the cost of an ad is based on user views

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ https://corporate.xing.com/fileadmin/user_upload/XING_FY_2018_Results_Presentation.pdf/[dead link]
  2. ^ 2018 Prelim results
  3. ^ "Karrierenetzwerk: Xing-Betreiberfirma heißt künftig New Work SE". handelsblatt.com (in German). Retrieved 21 August 2019.
  4. ^ GmbH, DWDL de. "Burda wird größter Aktionär bei Netzwerk Xing". DWDL.de. Retrieved 13 September 2023.
  5. ^ "Class war". The Economist. 19 November 2009. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  6. ^ Markoff, John (24 January 2007). "Move Over Silicon Valley, Here Come European Start-Ups". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  7. ^ Hinrichs, Lars (17 May 2010). "to all: XING has only *1* Founder and that's me. I am so fed up with people who try to claim some fame with the XING story". @larshinrichs. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  8. ^ Zee (8 June 2010). "XING founder Lars Hinrichs launches HackFWD, a new European startup incubator". The Next Web. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  9. ^ LinkedInsiders (12 February 2012). "LinkedIn: The next big Xing? Businessnetzwerke in Deutschland 2012". LinkedInsider Deutschland (in German). Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  10. ^ "Xing appoints eBay executive Gross-Selbeck as CEO". campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  11. ^ "Thomas Vollmoeller: Der Xing-Chef im Interview". manager magazin. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  12. ^ Bowser, Jacquie (24 November 2008). "Freude bei Xing: Karriere-Netzwerk vermeldet über 10 Mio. Mitglieder in DACH-Region". absatzwirtschaft.de. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  13. ^ "Burda wird Hauptaktionär von Xing". kress.de. 18 November 2009. Archived from the original on 21 November 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  14. ^ "XING: Hubert Burda Media neuer Hauptaktionär der XING AG". OnlinePresse.info. 20 November 2009. Archived from the original on 23 November 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  15. ^ Schürmann, Christof. "Burda: Verleger Burda hat Xing im Visier". wiwo.de (in German). Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  16. ^ "Amiando gefühlt unter Wert verkauft: Xing übernimmt für 10,35 Mio. Euro". Gründerszene Magazin (in German). 10 December 2010. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  17. ^ "Digitale Expansion: Medienhaus Burda hat Xing übernommen". manager magazin. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  18. ^ dpa (8 January 2013). "Internet: Xing übernimmt Karriere-Portal in Österreich". Die Zeit (in German). ISSN 0044-2070. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  19. ^ "Videokonferenz: Xing setzt auf steirisches Know-how". kleinezeitung.at (in German). 17 July 2015. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  20. ^ "Visocon Named a 2017 Cool Vendor by Gartner". UC Today. 31 July 2017. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  21. ^ "Xing kauft Wiener Start-up Prescreen für 17 Millionen Euro". futurezone.at (in German). 10 July 2017. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  22. ^ Lunden, Ingrid. "German LinkedIn rival Xing is rebranding as 'New Work,' acquires recruitment platform Honeypot for up to $64M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  23. ^ Charlton, Graham (12 December 2006). "Web 2.0 company Xing raises €35.7 million in IPO". Econsultancy. Retrieved 13 July 2019.[verification needed]
  24. ^ "Premium Account Upgrade, 18 March 2014". Archived from the original on 21 April 2014. Retrieved 18 March 2014.
  25. ^ LinkedIn takes on Xing, or the other way around! by Carsten Cumbrowski, 29 January 2007, SearchEngineJournal.com
  26. ^ "LinkedIn: The next big Xing? Businessnetzwerke in Deutschland 2012". 12 February 2012.
  27. ^ "Startseite".[permanent dead link]
  28. ^ "New Work: annual revenue 2022". Statista. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
  29. ^ Tutorial: Connecting Social Networks with Outlook (German)

External links[edit]