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What LinkedIn’s $10 billion milestone means
Microsoft’s FY2021 annual report says LinkedIn passed $10 billion in annual revenue for the first time. LinkedIn’s FY21 Q4 highlights reported the same milestone and 27% year-over-year growth. Microsoft recorded a $2.2 billion increase in LinkedIn revenue, also 27%.
FY2021 is Microsoft’s fiscal year, not the 2021 calendar year. The five-year comparison refers to the period since Microsoft acquired LinkedIn. LinkedIn said revenue had nearly tripled over that period; COO Daniel Shapero also said roughly half of growth since the acquisition came from outside the United States.
Sources: Microsoft FY2021 annual report; LinkedIn FY21 Q4 highlights; Daniel Shapero’s July 2021 post.
How LinkedIn earns revenue
LinkedIn described its enterprise solutions in three areas: Talent, Marketing, and Sales. Microsoft attributed the FY2021 revenue increase primarily to advertising demand in Marketing Solutions.
LinkedIn also said quarterly advertising revenue exceeded $1 billion for the first time in Q4 FY2021, up 97% year over year. That figure covers advertising in one quarter; it is neither LinkedIn’s total quarterly revenue nor its full-year advertising revenue.
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LinkedIn connected stronger demand for Talent Solutions annual contracts and job postings with improvement in the pandemic-era job market. That is the company’s explanation for the demand, not an independently established measure of what caused it. LinkedIn also pointed to integrations with Microsoft products such as Office, Viva, and Dynamics 365, but those examples do not quantify how much integration contributed financially.
Why the public figures do not reveal LinkedIn’s profit
Revenue is income from sales before costs are subtracted. Profit depends on expenses as well as revenue, so a company can report high or rapidly growing revenue without those figures establishing whether it earned a profit.
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteFor FY2021, Microsoft reported $24.351 billion in operating income for its Productivity and Business Processes segment. That segment included LinkedIn alongside other businesses, so its operating income cannot be treated as LinkedIn’s standalone profit. Microsoft’s cited annual-report passage gives LinkedIn’s revenue growth but not its operating income.
GeekWire reported on July 27, 2021, that Microsoft had stopped publicly reporting LinkedIn operating profits in fiscal 2019. Its account of earlier results and losses around the acquisition period does not establish LinkedIn’s profitability in FY2021 or today. Based on these disclosures, LinkedIn’s standalone FY2021 profit is unknown.
Source: GeekWire, July 27, 2021.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What later revenue growth adds—and what it does not
Microsoft’s 2025 proxy statement says LinkedIn’s annual revenue surpassed $17 billion for the first time in FY2025 and that membership reached 1.2 billion worldwide. Those figures show the scale LinkedIn later reached; they do not disclose LinkedIn’s standalone profit.
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Source: Microsoft 2025 proxy statement.
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