Microsoft has continued to grow LinkedIn, announcing on Monday that the social network for professionals now has more than 500 million users across 200 countries worldwide.
LinkedIn said last June that it had 430 million members with 19 percent year-on-year growth. By August, that figure had climbed to 450 million before reaching 467 million users as of the October quarterly report - impressive growth although not quite in the same league as Facebook or WhatsApp.
Analytics firm Apptopia estimates that LinkedIn now enjoys around 250 million monthly active users (due to its professional nature, people don't log into LinkedIn every day like they do Facebook or Instagram).
LinkedIn is taking additional steps to boost engagement on the site, however, through the addition of personalized insights in the My Network tab. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that this will include lists of who is the most connected in your network, who was your first connection, who has the most mutual connections and so on.
Aatif Awan, vice president for growth and international products at LinkedIn, said the community now represents more than 10 million active jobs and access to more than nine million companies with over 100,000 articles published every week to help users say informed on the news and views impacting their professional world.
Microsoft in 2016 purchased LinkedIn as part of a deal valued at $26.2 billion.