MANILA, Philippines — True to its moniker as the “social networking capital of the world,” the Philippines once again lent truth to the title as professional social networking service LinkedIn announced that it has reached 1 million Filipino members on the site on Monday.
The Philippines joins other powerhouses in Southeast Asia, such as Indonesia and Singapore, to make up the more than 4 million members of LinkedIn in the region. Indonesia earlier breached the 1 million mark in February.
In total, the social networking site for professionals has a 150 million global user base as of March.
In the Philippines, LinkedIn said the top three industries with the most number of members are in the fields of Information Technology and Services, Education Management, and Accounting.
Meanwhile, the top three employers with the most members on the site are business process outsourcing firms Accenture and Convergys, and Palawan Biodiesel Development Corp.
Most of the members, it added, graduated either from the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University or Ateneo de Manila University, incidentally the top three schools in the country.
“LinkedIn is about connecting the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful,” said Clifford Rosenberg, managing director of LinkedIn Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, “and this milestone demonstrates that professionals in the Philippines are interested.”
Rosenberg added that LinkedIn has become a venue for most Filipino professionals to “build their online brands,” a fad which has arisen in recent years thanks to the proliferation of various online social networks.
Aside from housing members’ online resume, LinkedIn has evolved in recent years to provide a venue for professionals to share knowledge about the workplace, or discuss pertinent issues relating to their respective industries.
LinkedIn launched its IPO in May 2011 to a skyrocketing stock price of almost $93 at the end of trading day, fueling rumors of yet another Internet bubble as other online companies’ IPOs — Zynga, Groupon and Pandora Media — quickly tanked in the stock market.
On Monday, LinkedIn’s stock price is pegged at $90.67, or double the initial IPO price of $45. The lowest it had gone was around $59 in end-2011, suggesting that the company’s IPO may be one of the most successful among Internet companies last year.
source: interaksyon.com
