Professional social network LinkedIn has been seeing a significant amount of growth internationally, 3.4 million members in India, out of 55 million members globally. That’s more than its members in the U.K., which just hit 3 million users. Today, LinkedIn is opening an office in Mumbai India, to set up shop in the area where it’s growing like gangbusters. In October, LinkedIn’s network’s CEO, Jeff Weiner, said in the post that half of LinkedIn’s membership is international, with India seeing the fastest rate of adoption of the network.
Nayan Patel, LinkedIn’s current director of strategic partnerships will be the new director of operations at LinkedIn India. Hari V. Krishnan, country manager of LinkedIn India said in a statement that the new office will focus on forming strategic partnerships with media organizations and other distribution channels. The new outpost will also work to gain more users and promote the use of the platform by third-party developers.
The professional social network has already formed a partnership with Indian media company Network18 that will integrate of business and finance content from its business news channel LinkedIn. UGC from LinkedIn will also be cross-posted to CNBC-TV18, a business news channel in India.
LinkedIn has has a big year. Founder Reid Hoffman recently changed the guard at the company, with Weiner taking the helm as CEO in June. While LinkedIn is a strong IPO candidate, Hoffman recently told us that he’s not in any rush to go public. The company was valued at around $1 billion in its last round of financing in 2008, and has been profitable for the past years. And last week, Hoffman told Reuters that the company plans to pursue an IPO at some point, but not any time soon.
The network also added a number of new features including Twitter integration, and released its API.