LinkedIn has announced its Q4 2013 earnings, posting increased revenue, but share price of the company dived on weak outllook.
LinkedIn said its revenue during Q4 2013 was $447.2 million, which is an increase of 47 percent when compared to $303.6 million in revenue during Q4 2012. Analysts had predicted LinkedIn to report $438 million as revenue during the final quarter of 2013.
"Solid fourth quarter performance capped another successful year where improvements in scale and relevance across our platform led to strong member engagement," said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. "Moving forward, we are investing significantly in a focused number of long-term initiatives that will allow us to realize our vision to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce."
The company said that it added 18 million new LinkedIn accounts during Q4 2013, which expands the website's total reach to 277 million through the end of December 2013. However, the number of visitors and the total number of pages viewed declined during the last three months of 2013.
"We ended 2013 in a strong position across engagement and monetization, and we are investing aggressively in 2014 for both our member and customer platforms," said Steve Sordello, CFO of LinkedIn.
LinkedIn reported earnings of $3.8 million, or 3 cents per share in Q4 2013, which is down 67 percent from $11.5 million, or 10 cents per share, in Q4 2012. However, LinkedIn posted a 20 percent increase in non-GAAP net income to $48.2 million in the last quarter of 2013 when compared $40.2 million Q4 2012.
Despite strong Q4 2013 financial results, analysts were not happy as the company proposed weaker-than-expected revenue for Q1 2014. The company projected sales of $455 million to $460 million during the first quarter of this year, which falls short of analysts' estimations of $470 million.
The company also unveiled the $120 million acquisition of job search start-up Bright.com, which is the biggest acquisition in LinkedIn's history. The latest acquisition may affect the company's financial results in Q1 2014 as well as for the entire year.
LinkedIn's share price dived 6.20 percent on Friday to close down at $209.59 on the NYSE.
