LinkedIn, the online network for business professionals, says it signed up its two millionth South African user on Tuesday.
The US company, which is listed on the Nasdaq in New York with a market capitalisation of US$12bn, says it has 187m members in more 200 countries.
It says the three biggest industries represented on LinkedIn in South Africa are IT, financial services and accounting. The three South African companies with the most employees on LinkedIn are Absa, Eskom and Standard Bank.
Not surprisingly, Johannesburg has the most South African LinkedIn users, followed by Cape Town and Durban. The top three universities represented are the universities of Johannesburg, Pretoria and South Africa. The top three groups by membership are the South African Business Network, the Johannesburg Business Club and South African Engineers and Expats.
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of research house World Wide Worx, says LinkedIn’s South African user figures are in line with his expectations. He says World Wide Worx conducted research on social networks in September, which showed that LinkedIn had 1,9m members at the time.
LinkedIn remains smaller than social networks Twitter and Facebook in South Africa, Goldstuck says. He estimates that there are about 2,7m South Africans on Twitter and more than 6,5m on Facebook. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media