XING

XING is a Hamburg-based career-oriented social networking site, operated by New Work SE (until mid-2019 XING SE)[3]

For other uses, see 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 asFWB: O1BC
FoundedAugust 2003 (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 (2003-11)

The site is primarily focused on the German-speaking market, alongside XING Spain, and competes with the American platform LinkedIn.[4][5]

Company history

OPEN Business Club AG was founded in August 2003 in Hamburg, Germany by Lars Hinrichs.[6][7] 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.[8]

Leadership

Lars Hinrich led the company as CEO until 2009, when he was succeeded by Stefan Groß-Selbeck.[9] Thomas Vollmoeller has served from 2012[10] and was succeeded by Petra von Strombeck in 2020.

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.[11]

Ownership and acquisitions

In November 2009 Hubert Burda Media acquired 25.1% of XING, becoming its main shareholder.[12][13][14] In 2010 XING acquired online event management company Amiando, changing its name to XING EVENTS.[15] In 2012 Burda increased its shareholding to over 50%.[16] In 2013 XING acquired Austrian e-recruiting company Kununu.[17] In 2015 XING announced a cooperation project with eyeson,[18] a unified communications provider.[19] In 2017 XING acquired global expat network InterNations and Austrian recruitment company Prescreen.[20] In April 2019 XING paid €22 million for Honeypot, a Berlin-based IT job platform.[21]

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,[22] 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.[23] 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.[24]

About 76% of all pageviews come from Germany, 90% from the D-A-CH area (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).[25]

As of 15 September 2017 XING has changed its legal status to become a Societas Europaea.[26]

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.[27][28] 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.[27][28]

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 1,290
2018 235.1 1,567

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,[29] 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
  2. 2018 Prelim results
  3. "Karrierenetzwerk: Xing-Betreiberfirma heißt künftig New Work SE". handelsblatt.com (in German). Retrieved 21 August 2019.
  4. "Class war". The Economist. 19 November 2009. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Zee (8 June 2010). "XING founder Lars Hinrichs launches HackFWD, a new European startup incubator". The Next Web. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  8. LinkedInsiders (12 February 2012). "LinkedIn: The next big Xing? Businessnetzwerke in Deutschland 2012". LinkedInsider Deutschland (in German). Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  9. "Xing appoints eBay executive Gross-Selbeck as CEO". campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  10. "Thomas Vollmoeller: Der Xing-Chef im Interview". manager magazin. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  11. Bowser, Jacquie (24 November 2008). "Freude bei Xing: Karriere-Netzwerk vermeldet über 10 Mio. Mitglieder in DACH-Region". absatzwirtschaft.de. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  12. "Burda wird Hauptaktionär von Xing". kress.de. 18 November 2009. Archived from the original on 21 November 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  13. "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.
  14. Schürmann, Christof. "Burda: Verleger Burda hat Xing im Visier". wiwo.de (in German). Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  15. "Amiando gefühlt unter Wert verkauft: Xing übernimmt für 10,35 Mio. Euro". Gründerszene Magazin (in German). 10 December 2010. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  16. "Digitale Expansion: Medienhaus Burda hat Xing übernommen". manager magazin. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  17. dpa (8 January 2013). "Internet: Xing übernimmt Karriere-Portal in Österreich". Die Zeit (in German). ISSN 0044-2070. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  18. "Videokonferenz: Xing setzt auf steirisches Know-how". kleinezeitung.at (in German). 17 July 2015. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  19. "Visocon Named a 2017 Cool Vendor by Gartner". UC Today. 31 July 2017. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  20. "Xing kauft Wiener Start-up Prescreen für 17 Millionen Euro". futurezone.at (in German). Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  21. Lunden, Ingrid. "German LinkedIn rival Xing is rebranding as 'New Work,' acquires recruitment platform Honeypot for up to $64M". TechCrunch. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  22. Charlton, Graham (12 December 2006). "Web 2.0 company Xing raises €35.7 million in IPO". Econsultancy. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  23. Premium Account Upgrade, 18 March 2014
  24. LinkedIn takes on Xing, or the other way around! by Carsten Cumbrowski, 29 January 2007, SearchEngineJournal.com
  25. "LinkedIn: The next big Xing? Businessnetzwerke in Deutschland 2012". 12 February 2012.
  26. "Startseite".
  27. Stock response of „Team Quality and Security“ of Xing AG to affected persons
  28. Stock response of Head of Customer Service of Xing AG to affected persons
  29. Tutorial: Connecting Social Networks with Outlook (German)
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