XING

For other uses, see Xing.

New Work SE

Type of business	Societas Europaea
Type of site	Professional network service
Available in	Simplified Chinese Dutch English Finnish French German Hungarian Italian Japanese Korean Polish Portuguese Russian Spanish Swedish Turkish
Traded as	FWB: NWO
Founded	August 2003; 21 years ago (2003-08)
Headquarters	Hamburg, Germany
Key people	Petra von Strombeck (CEO) Patrick Alberts (CPO) Ingo Chu (CFO) Jens Pape (CTO) Martin Weiss (chairman of the supervisory board)
Revenue	€235.1 million (2018)[1]
Total assets	€273.5 million (2018)[2]
Total equity	€98.3 million (2018)
Employees	2327 (2020)
URL	Official website
Registration	Required
Launched	November 2003; 21 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

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

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

XING shareholders

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

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 one is 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).^[9]

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

Revenue

XING sales (€)^[27]

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

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,^[28] 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

• LinkedIn
• Viadeo
• Professional network service
• Social software
• Social networking service
• List of social networking websites

References

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 (in German). Retrieved 21 August 2019.
4. Voß, Jochen. "Burda wird größter Aktionär bei Netzwerk Xing". DWDL.de (in German). Retrieved 13 September 2023.
5. "Class war". The Economist. 19 November 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
6. Markoff, John (24 January 2007). "Move Over Silicon Valley, Here Come European Start-Ups". The New York Times. 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. "LinkedIn: The next big Xing? Businessnetzwerke in Deutschland 2012". LinkedInsider Deutschland (in German). 12 February 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
10. "Xing appoints eBay executive Gross-Selbeck as CEO". Campaign UK. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
11. "Thomas Vollmoeller: Der Xing-Chef im Interview". manager magazin. 27 March 2017. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
12. Bowser, Jacquie (24 November 2008). "Freude bei Xing: Karriere-Netzwerk vermeldet über 10 Mio. Mitglieder in DACH-Region". absatzwirtschaft. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
13. "Burda wird Hauptaktionär von Xing". kress. 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. 12 December 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2019. ^{[verification needed]}
18. "Internet: Xing übernimmt Karriere-Portal in Österreich". Die Zeit (in German). 8 January 2013. 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 (April 2019). "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. Cumbrowski, Carsten (29 January 2007). "LinkedIn takes on Xing, or the other way around!". Search Engine Journal.
26. "Startseite".^{[permanent dead link‍]}
27. "New Work: annual revenue 2022". Statista. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
28. Tutorial: Connecting Social Networks with Outlook (German)

External links

• Media related to XING at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website