XING

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title: "XING" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["companies-based-in-hamburg", "professional-networks", "german-social-networking-websites", "2003-establishments-in-germany", "employment-social-networks", "companies-in-the-tecdax", "companies-listed-on-the-frankfurt-stock-exchange", "societas-europaea-companies"] description: "Social media website" topic_path: "geography/germany" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XING" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Social media website ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox website"]

Field	Value
name	New Work SE
logo	XING Logo.svg
logo_size	170px
company_type	Societas Europaea
traded_as
foundation
location	Hamburg, Germany
key_people	{{Plainlist
revenue	€235.1 million (2018)
assets	€273.5 million (2018)
equity	€98.3 million (2018)
num_employees	2327 (2020)
url
website_type	Professional network service
language
registration	Required
launched
intl	yes
::

| name = New Work SE | logo = XING Logo.svg | logo_size = 170px | company_type = Societas Europaea | traded_as = | foundation = | location = Hamburg, Germany | key_people = {{Plainlist|

• Petra von Strombeck (CEO)
• Patrick Alberts (CPO)
• Ingo Chu (CFO)
• Jens Pape (CTO)
• Martin Weiss (chairman of the supervisory board)}} | revenue = €235.1 million (2018) | assets = €273.5 million (2018) | equity = €98.3 million (2018) | num_employees = 2327 (2020) | url = | website_type = Professional network service | language = | registration = Required | launched = | intl = yes

XING is a Hamburg-based career-oriented recruiting, job-search and social networking site, operated by New Work SE (until mid-2019 XING SE) and owned mainly by Hubert Burda Media.

The site is primarily focused on the German-speaking market, alongside XING Spain; it competes with the American platform LinkedIn.

Company history

OPEN Business Club AG was founded in August 2003 in Hamburg, Germany, by Lars Hinrichs. Its official debut was 1 November 2003. It was renamed XING in November 2006.

In its early years, the site pursued a global strategy; however, since 2012, XING has focused on the German-speaking market, as 76% of all XING page views come from Germany and 90% come from the D-A-CH area.

Leadership

Lars Hinrich led the company as CEO until 2009, when he was succeeded by Stefan Groß-Selbeck. Thomas Vollmoeller then served from 2012 and was succeeded by Petra von Strombeck in 2020.

Number of users

As of April 2019, XING reported 16 million members, up from 10 million members in the D-A-CH area in March 2016, which at that time included 880,000 premium members.

Ownership and acquisitions

In November 2009, Hubert Burda Media acquired 25.1% of XING, becoming its main shareholder. In 2010, XING acquired online event management company Amiando, changing its name to XING EVENTS. In 2012, Burda increased its shareholding to over 50%. In 2013, XING acquired Austrian e-recruiting company Kununu. In 2015, XING announced a cooperation project with eyeson, a unified communications provider. In 2017, XING acquired global expat network InterNations and Austrian recruitment company Prescreen. In April 2019, XING paid €22 million for Honeypot, a Berlin-based IT job platform.

::data[format=table title="XING shareholders"] | Shareholder | Proportion of holding (in %) | Burda Digital | Oppenheimer Holdings | Wasatch Advisors | Union Investment (majority for DZ Bank ) | DWS Investments (majority for Deutsche Bank ) | Norges Bank | free float | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 54.84 | | | | | | | | | | 5.04 | | | | | | | | | | 3.02 | | | | | | | | | | 2.98 | | | | | | | | | | 2.95 | | | | | | | | | | 2.83 | | | | | | | | | | 32.92 | | | | | | | | | ::

IPO

XING became the first Web 2.0 company to go public in Europe, debuting on 7 December 2006 at an issue price of 30 euros per share.

Website

The platform offers personal profiles, groups, discussion forums, event coordination, and other common social community features. Basic membership is free, but many core functions, like searching for people with specific qualifications or messaging people to whom one is not already connected, can only be accessed by premium members. Premium membership comes at a monthly fee from €6.35 to €9.95 depending on the billing interval and the country one is from. The platform uses https and has a rigid privacy and no-spam policy.

XING has a special Ambassador program for each city or region around the world with a substantial constituency. The Ambassadors hold local events that promote the use of social networking as a business tool, letting members introduce business ideas to one another.

XING also offers the system for closed communities, called Enterprise groups with their own access paths and interface designs. The platform serves as the infrastructure for corporate groups, including IBM, McKinsey, Accenture and others.

About 76% of all pageviews come from Germany, 90% from the D-A-CH area (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

As of 15 September 2017 XING had changed its legal status to become a Societas Europaea.

Revenue

::data[format=table title="XING sales (€){{Cite web |title=New Work: annual revenue 2022 |url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/266178/annual-revenue-of-xing/ |access-date=2024-03-17 |website=Statista |language=en}}"]

Year	Sales in € million	Employees	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
35.3	174
45.1	265
54.3	306
66.2	456
73.3	513
84.8	571
101.4	649
123.0	792
148.5	961
187.8	1,290
235.1	1,567
269.2	1,778
276.5	1,787
284.5	1,712
313.4	1,887
::

XING Mobile

Xing.com Mobile allows users to access some of its functions using a mobile phone, PDA or smartphone. Standards supported: HTML 3.2, XHTML MP 1.0, WML 1.1.

XING plug-ins

Xing.com plugins are available for free download that allow contact synchronization with productivity and office suites such as: Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook, Windows Address Book and Outlook Express. It also allows manual CSV File import–export and has a Firefox search plug-in.

Recruitment

Since October 2007, XING has run a job marketplace for candidates and recruiters. Alongside fixed-price job ads, XING was one of the first German job boards to use a pay-per-click payment model, where the cost of an ad is based on user views.

References

References

1. "Archived copy".
2. "2018 Prelim results".
3. "Karrierenetzwerk: Xing-Betreiberfirma heißt künftig New Work SE".
4. Voß, Jochen. "Burda wird größter Aktionär bei Netzwerk Xing".
5. (2009-11-19). "Class war". The Economist.
6. Markoff, John. (2007-01-24). "Move Over Silicon Valley, Here Come European Start-Ups". [[The New York Times]].
7. Hinrichs, Lars. (2010-05-17). "to all: XING has only 1 Founder and that's me. I am so fed up with people who try to claim some fame with the XING story.".
8. Zee. (2010-06-08). "XING founder Lars Hinrichs launches HackFWD, a new European startup incubator".
9. (2012-02-12). "LinkedIn: The next big Xing? Businessnetzwerke in Deutschland 2012".
10. "Xing appoints eBay executive Gross-Selbeck as CEO".
11. (27 March 2017). "Thomas Vollmoeller: Der Xing-Chef im Interview".
12. Bowser, Jacquie. (24 November 2008). "Freude bei Xing: Karriere-Netzwerk vermeldet über 10 Mio. Mitglieder in DACH-Region".
13. (18 November 2009). "Burda wird Hauptaktionär von Xing". kress.
14. (20 November 2009). "XING: Hubert Burda Media neuer Hauptaktionär der XING AG". OnlinePresse.info.
15. Schürmann, Christof. (September 2019). "Burda: Verleger Burda hat Xing im Visier".
16. (2010-12-10). "Amiando gefühlt unter Wert verkauft: Xing übernimmt für 10,35 Mio. Euro".
17. (12 December 2012). "Digitale Expansion: Medienhaus Burda hat Xing übernommen".
18. (2013-01-08). "Internet: Xing übernimmt Karriere-Portal in Österreich". Die Zeit.
19. (2015-07-17). "Videokonferenz: Xing setzt auf steirisches Know-how".
20. (2017-07-31). "Visocon Named a 2017 Cool Vendor by Gartner".
21. (10 July 2017). "Xing kauft Wiener Start-up Prescreen für 17 Millionen Euro".
22. Lunden, Ingrid. (April 2019). "German LinkedIn rival Xing is rebranding as 'New Work,' acquires recruitment platform Honeypot for up to $64M".
23. Charlton, Graham. (2006-12-12). "Web 2.0 company Xing raises €35.7 million in IPO".
24. "Premium Account Upgrade, 18 March 2014".
25. Cumbrowski, Carsten. (29 January 2007). "LinkedIn takes on Xing, or the other way around!".
26. (August 2023). "Startseite}}{{Dead link".
27. "New Work: annual revenue 2022".
28. [http://www.netzwelt.de/news/89813-anleitung-soziale-netzwerke-microsoft-outlook.html Tutorial: Connecting Social Networks with Outlook] (German)

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