LinkedIn targets 'lead elites'

LinkedIn headquarters in Mountain View, California. The world's largest online professional network with 277 million members globally, LinkedIn launched a Chinese-language website on Tuesday to offer more localized services. The company has created a joint venture with Sequoia China and China Broadband Capital to connect more than 140 million Chinese professionals. JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

While most foreign Internet giants stumbled in the Chinese market, the United States-based professional social networking company LinkedIn Corp is moving to become more localized in China.

LinkedIn, the world's largest online professional network with 277 million members globally, launched a Chinese-language website on Tuesday to offer more localized services.

its new website will be called Ling Ying (lead elites).

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Derek Shen, LinkedIn's China president, wrote in a blog post that LinkedIn has created a joint venture with Sequoia China and China Broadband Capital to connect more than 140 million Chinese professionals.

LinkedIn owns 93 percent of the China joint venture, while the other two partners put in $5 million in cash for a 7 percent stake, according to a filing earlier this month with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

California-based LinkedIn announced recently it had about 50 million members in the Asia-Pacific region. China ranked as the third-largest market for LinkedIn in the region with 4 million members, behind India (about 24 million) and Australia (5 million). LinkedIn has had operations in China with an English-language site for more than a decade.

"LinkedIn is still at an initial stage of its development in China.We hope to localize and improve our products and services for Chinese professionals," Shen said.

"The chance for LinkedIn to 'win' in China is greater than 50 percent, because we have a local team, as well as support from the international platform," Shen added.

China has long been a market where foreign Internet giants rarely achieved successes. LinkedIn's social media peers such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc were blocked after they balked at government censorship rules.

Facebook hasn't built up operations in China beyond hiring contractors to help advertisers reach people outside the country, Bloomberg News quoted Debbie Frost, Facebook's spokeswoman, as saying.

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