India to become LinkedIn’s biggest market in 2–3 years: Country Manager

India could become India’s largest market for LinkedIn in the next two to three years, says its India Country Manager, Kumaresh Pattabiraman. He described India as the ‘signpost’ for the global future of work.

At present, India is the second-largest and fastest-growing market for the professional networking platform with over 16 crore users.

“By solving for India, we also solve for our 1.2 billion members globally,” he said in an interview with Press Trust of India (PTI).

He attributed the Indian market momentum to its digital-first young, ambitious workforce, which is ‘on the move’, the high appetite here for upskilling, inherent trust in the human insights and knowledge derived from the community and network of mentors and colleagues.

The Microsoft-owned platform for professionals has seen its membership here grow by more than 50% in the last two years, and the revenue has more than doubled since 2020, Pattabiraman added. LinkedIn has over 16 crore Indians on the platform.

“That’s our projection so far, but as you can imagine, the world is in a very interesting moment and a lot can change,” he added.

Pattabiraman’s focus is on harnessing the market’s ‘unique’ traits, from its AI-savvy workforce that is young and ambitious to the vibrant ecosystem of small and medium-sized businesses. Accordingly, he said, LinkedIn is taking several big bets to tap into India market opportunities, and adding video as a means for professionals to learn, share knowledge, and connect is one such area.

“We see a surge in immersive video uploads of 60%, which is a global high on LinkedIn in India. And that is just testament to how strong a fit we find with video,” he noted.

LinkedIn is ‘reimagining’ the job search experience with AI, Pattabiraman added. “We are reimagining the job search experience with an AI-powered job search, which is helping job seekers who can search in their own words and find jobs that are not just a great fit for their skills, but also their purpose.

“In fact, in India, we’ve added notice periods and expected salary to ‘open to work’ and we see upwards of 15 lakh Indian professionals who have already adopted this,” he pointed out.

The platform is keen to support small and medium businesses, given that 30% of its India membership is engaged in the SMBs category.

“We are already building tools that help small and medium businesses hire faster, grow their businesses, and establish their brand by telling their stories. And by doing all of this, we don’t believe these bets are just for India…We believe that India is a signpost for the global future of work, which means that by solving for India, we also solve for our 1.2 billion members globally,” the official noted.

He said that the energy and resourcefulness of Indian talent is unmatched, and not only is LinkedIn enabling the global community to tap into this talent pool, but as a platform, LinkedIn itself has its largest R&D centre outside the US, in Bengaluru.

“We have teams that contribute to every major line of business that we have, including talent solutions, learning solutions, premium subscriptions, marketing solutions, trust, you name it. We build in India, for the world,” he said.

India continues to be a key market for the platform, both as an R&D innovation centre and a market to grow in, he asserted.

“As an R&D innovation centre, we are investing across the board, be it product, AI, infrastructure, employee productivity, and as a market, we are focused on growing in Tier II and Tier III cities,” he said.