Linkedin.com stated this week that more than half of its global traffic will be from mobile devices in the very near future, what the company terms ‘the mobile moment.’
According to the head of engineering at the Linkedin Technology Center in Bangalore, India, the world is becoming much more mobile, and the web is being accessed via smartphones and tablets more often.
Ganesan Venkatasubramian added that about 43% of Linkedin’s current traffic comes from mobile and will pass 50% soon.
The website launched its operations in India in 2009, setting up the technology center in Bangalore in 2011. This is the only technology center for Linkedin outside the United States. The company employs about 350 professionals in India, with about 50 engineers working on R&D. Linkedin also has offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, which is where most of its sales staff is located.
The head of engineering stated that Linkedin started working in India mostly so it could ‘follow the sun,’ that is, to have operations running 24 hours per day. But over time, the company recognized the level of talent in India, so it decided to open a new technology center and have R&D operations here.
There is a lot more focus on mobile traffic within Linkedin, he noted, and mobile traffic in India is expected to be well over 50% on Linkedin soon as well.
Linkedin, which updated its profiles for premium subscribers recently, was long focused on the US market, but interestingly, 2/3 of current members are outside the US, with a total user base of 300 million. The company seems to be focusing on servicing individual regions and geographies outside the US.
India currently has the second largest user base on Linkedin, with a total of 26 million users. The US has approximately 100 million.
Linkedin has a presence in 200 countries around the globe with more than 300,000 job postings and 24,000 schools. It was visited by 187 million unique users every month in 2013.
While Linkedin does experience some growth pains now and then, there is no doubt that this social media giant is on the upswing.