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Country Manager, LinkedIn India, Ashutosh Gupta believes that the Indian GenZ will drive the next 100 million users for the professional networking platform. In an exclusive conversation with the businessline, Gupta spoke on how India’s demographic growth is driving not only massive uptick in users, but the Indians’ desire to learn and engage on the platform is making India an extremely important market for LinkedIn.
You have user base of 115 million and you target to add 100 million more users in four years time, how do you achieve that?
India has a demographic dividend, which is really paying huge dividends for the whole country, not just for LinkedIn. That is working for us, the young population is really coming very strongly on the platform. For India, Gen Z is really very much on LinkedIn. Year-on-year, we have grown 73 per cent in that segment. So that’s a big representation on the platform. And India being a young country, more and more people are going to graduate. More and more people are going to come into the job market, so India has a very good chance to reach its next 100 million users on LinkedIn.
What does a potential 200 million user base in India mean for LinkedIn in terms of revenue growth?
We feel blessed that we don’t have one single source of revenue, we’re quite diversified, right? For India, two monetisation strategies for LinkedIn work the best. Which is called LinkedIn Talent Solutions, which is helping recruiters to hire people leveraging LinkedIn data. This is the biggest value proposition we have. So, I think India is the fastest growing market in the APAC region. We have almost doubled our revenues in FY21 in that talent solution space. 70 per cent of the new business in talent solutions is coming from tier-2 tier-3 markets, and non-IT companies, even though we were seeing the largest demand from the tech space earlier.
The next solution is LinkedIn Learning Solutions. It comes from a company called lynda.com which was acquired five years back. They are the best learning content and we have further enhanced the learning content by many folds.I think, there are 40 million plus paid seats globally, and we have grown 270 per cent year-on-year. In India, members are spending 2X times what their global counterparts are paying because Indians like to learn.
According to LinkedIn’s Future of Work report, in India, tech industry has a significant demand for AI-trained talent, after professional services. The tech sector is hiring AI talent the most in India, unlike other countries where alternative industries like manufacturing are hiring more than the tech sector. What is the reason for this?
Professional services is certainly a large employment sector - one that demands AI skills and talent like other sectors. When it comes to technology, information and media, it’s not surprising because historically, India has harboured great volumes of tech talent for years, maybe even decades now. So, when you compare these volumes to other markets like Brazil, Germany, UK, and US, India’s tech and IT industry stands out. Just like Y2K and post Covid digital transformation, the rise of AI is yet another event where India is emerging as a global hub for technically-skilled talent.
This is also because in addition to equipping their own talent with AI skills, tech companies are also creating AI tools and delivering related services to their clients - which explains why the trend is consistent across markets in addition to India.
Since you wish to expand to tier-2 and tier-3 markets, will you be adding regional languages to the platform?
We’ll definitely review this. We recently launched ads in Hindi. We will see in the future, what other languages we need to add. But right now, members are quite comfortable with English. That is the interesting phenomena in India. English may not be my spoken language, but for professional reasons, I converse in English. I’m not comfortable in it, but I’ll use it. But I think that as members come to us with more demand, we will definitely listen to them and do the right thing. India is a very important country for us.
For most tech firms, India serves as a ripe testing ground for new products that can be launched into similar markets all over the world. Are there any India-specific products which are in consideration at the moment? What other tech besides AI should we be excited for?
India is a key market for LinkedIn and we are focused on innovating and building tools specifically for members and customers. Our Bengaluru R&D centre is a hub for many AI, trust, and safety innovations at LinkedIn. We recently launched ads in Hindi, to cater to our growing Indian user-base in the B2B advertising segment. This is the first vernacular language in India to be available for ads on the platform.
What will be LinkedIn’s game plan in India for the next few years?
We are committed to fostering a skills-first labour market, and are constantly investing in empowering our member community and workforce in India with relevant resources, along with government and corporate partnerships to build a skilled workforce.
Going forward, our work here will prioritise innovation to help members and customers harness the full potential of the platform. We expect our next phase of growth for members and customers to come from diverse tier-2 and tier 3 markets as we grow our base across verticals in the coming year.
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