14 DAY TRIAL // After having filed for an IPO and managed to attract more than 100 million users, LinkedIn is continuing its ascendant trend by opening its first headquarters in Singapore.
The widely popular social network for professionals has chosen to open this office in order to assist businessmen from the APAC region.
Furthermore, LinkedIn was not present in Asia until now, and they wanted to enter this market to strengthen their position on a global scale.
Led by Arvind Rajan, managing director and vice-president of LinkedIn, Asia Pacific and Japan, the newly-opened headquarters will be located in One Marina Boulevard, Singapore.
According to him, “[these] headquarters will serve as a gateway for regional expansion, and support LinkedIn’s existing operations in Australia and India.”
The existing offices in the area currently have around 50 employees, with a dozen more to be hired in the near future in Australia and India.
The company had already opened these headquarters because Asia Pacific currently accounts for more than 18 million LinkedIn users.
Arvind Rajan has revealed that, due to the service's popularity, they are also planning to enter the Japanese and the Chinese markets by the end of the ongoing year.
“We’re looking at it carefully, and thinking about whether it makes sense to get into the Chinese market, and if so, how”.
Launched in 2003, the platform focused on professional networking has opened its first office in the APAC area in 2009 by setting up centers in Mumbai, India, and later in Australia.
Unlike Facebook, that targets entertainment and social interactions, the purpose of LinkedIn is to facilitate business relations and assist professionals in establishing connections and it is understandable why it has not developed as fast as the former one.
In other words, LinkedIn targets a specific segment of the audience and strives to strengthen its regional communities in order to help them grow.