Organization:XING

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New Work SE
Xing logo.svg
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 asFWBO1BC
FoundedAugust 2003; 20 years ago (2003-08)
Hamburg, Germany
HeadquartersHamburg, Germany
Key peopleDr. Thomas Vollmoeller (CEO), Stefan Winners (Chairman of the supervisory board)
Revenue
  • €235.1 Million (2018)[1]
Total assets€273.5 million (2018)[2]
Total equity€98.3 million (2018)
Employees1567 (2018)
Websitewww.xing.com
Alexa rankNegative increase 1442[3]
RegistrationRequired
LaunchedNovember 2003

XING is a Hamburg-based career-oriented social networking site, operated by New Work SE (until mid-2019 XING SE)[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

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, but 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

Lars Hinrich led the company as CEO until 2009, when he was succeeded by Stefan Groß-Selbeck.[10] Current CEO Thomas Vollmoeller has served since 2012.[11]

Number of users

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

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

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

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

If a user wishes to change their name, additional proof is demanded. In case of affirmation of gender for transgender people given names and gender will not be changed without medical testimony or provision of court documents confirming the person's transition in a medical or legal context.[28][29] If gender is reassigned, birth names are removed, which is legally required, because any disclosure or investigation would be illegal under German law, as per Sec. 5 para. 1 and Sec. 10 para. 2 Transsexual Act.[28][29]

Revenue

XING Sales (€)
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 1290
2018 235.1 1567

XING Mobile

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

Xing.com plugins are available for free download that allow contact synchronization with Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook,[30] Windows Address Book and Outlook Express. It also allows manual CSV File import–export and has a Firefox search plug-in.

Recruitment

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

References

  1. [1]
  2. 2018 Prelim results
  3. "Alexa.com rank". https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/xing.com. Retrieved 17 August 2019. 
  4. "Karrierenetzwerk: Xing-Betreiberfirma heißt künftig New Work SE" (in de). https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/it-medien/karrierenetzwerk-xing-betreiberfirma-heisst-kuenftig-new-work-se/23973148.html. 
  5. "Class war". The Economist. 2009-11-19. ISSN 0013-0613. https://www.economist.com/business/2009/11/19/class-war. 
  6. Markoff, John (2007-01-24). "Move Over Silicon Valley, Here Come European Start-Ups" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/technology/24munich.html. 
  7. Hinrichs, Lars (2010-05-17). "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." (in en). https://twitter.com/larshinrichs/status/14180646197. 
  8. Zee (2010-06-08). "XING founder Lars Hinrichs launches HackFWD, a new European startup incubator" (in en-us). https://thenextweb.com/eu/2010/06/08/xing-founder-lars-hinrichs-launches-european-incubator-hackfwd/. 
  9. LinkedInsiders (2012-02-12). "LinkedIn: The next big Xing? Businessnetzwerke in Deutschland 2012" (in de-DE). https://linkedinsiders.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/linkedin-the-next-big-xing-businessnetzwerke-in-deutschland-2012/. 
  10. "Xing appoints eBay executive Gross-Selbeck as CEO". https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/xing-appoints-ebay-executive-gross-selbeck-ceo/864307. 
  11. "Thomas Vollmoeller: Der Xing-Chef im Interview". https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/karriere/thomas-vollmoeller-der-xing-chef-im-interview-a-1140167.html. 
  12. Bowser, Jacquie (24 November 2008). "Freude bei Xing: Karriere-Netzwerk vermeldet über 10 Mio. Mitglieder in DACH-Region". https://www.absatzwirtschaft.de/freude-bei-xing-karriere-netzwerk-vermeldet-ueber-10-mio-mitglieder-in-dach-region-79103/. 
  13. "Burda wird Hauptaktionär von Xing". kress.de. 18 November 2009. http://www.kress.de/cont/story.php?id=131394.  [verification needed]
  14. "XING: Hubert Burda Media neuer Hauptaktionär der XING AG". OnlinePresse.info. 20 November 2009. http://www.onlinepresse.info/node/4214.  [verification needed]
  15. Schürmann, Christof. "Burda: Verleger Burda hat Xing im Visier" (in de). https://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/burda-xing-im-visier/6334128.html.  [verification needed]
  16. "Amiando gefühlt unter Wert verkauft: Xing übernimmt für 10,35 Mio. Euro" (in de). 2010-12-10. https://www.gruenderszene.de/allgemein/amiando-xing-exit.  [verification needed]
  17. "Digitale Expansion: Medienhaus Burda hat Xing übernommen". https://www.manager-magazin.de/digitales/it/a-872587.html.  [verification needed]
  18. dpa (2013-01-08). "Internet: Xing übernimmt Karriere-Portal in Österreich" (in de-DE). Die Zeit. ISSN 0044-2070. https://www.zeit.de/news/2013-01/08/internet-xing-uebernimmt-karriere-portal-in-oesterreich-08180608.  [verification needed]
  19. "Videokonferenz: Xing setzt auf steirisches Know-how" (in de). 2015-07-17. https://www.kleinezeitung.at/wirtschaft/4779566/.  [verification needed]
  20. "Visocon Named a 2017 Cool Vendor by Gartner" (in en-GB). 2017-07-31. https://www.uctoday.com/collaboration/video-conferencing/visocon-named-2017-cool-vendor-gartner/.  [verification needed]
  21. "Xing kauft Wiener Start-up Prescreen für 17 Millionen Euro" (in de). https://futurezone.at/thema/start-ups/xing-kauft-wiener-start-up-prescreen-fuer-17-millionen-euro/274.347.108.  [verification needed]
  22. Lunden, Ingrid. "German LinkedIn rival Xing is rebranding as ‘New Work,’ acquires recruitment platform Honeypot for up to $64M" (in en-US). http://social.techcrunch.com/2019/04/01/german-linkedin-rival-xing-is-rebranding-as-new-work-acquires-recruitment-platform-honeypot-for-up-to-64m/.  [verification needed]
  23. Charlton, Graham (2006-12-12). "Web 2.0 company Xing raises €35.7 million in IPO" (in en). https://econsultancy.com/web-2-0-company-xing-raises-eur35-7-million-in-ipo/.  [verification needed]
  24. Premium Account Upgrade, 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". 2012-02-12. http://linkedinsiders.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/linkedin-the-next-big-xing-businessnetzwerke-in-deutschland-2012/. 
  27. "Startseite". https://corporate.xing.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/meldung/new-legal-status-xing-to-become-a-european-company/. 
  28. 28.0 28.1 Stock response of „Team Quality and Security“ of Xing AG to affected persons
  29. 29.0 29.1 Stock response of Head of Customer Service of Xing AG to affected persons
  30. Tutorial: Connecting Social Networks with Outlook (German)

External links