XING - Powering Relationships

• Sharp increase: turnover almost doubles, increasing to € 15.91 million
• More than € 3 million from new areas of business
• Continuous rise in the number of paying members - 108,000 new premium members in six months

 
Hamburg, July 22, 2008 – XING AG (ISIN: DE000XNG888), operator of XING –the leading network for business contacts in Europe – has almost doubled its overall revenues over the first six months of 2007 to 15.91 million euros, according to preliminary and unaudited results for the first half-year of 2008. The quarterly revenue achieved in Q2 totalled 8.41 million euros, compared to 4.29 million euros in Q2 of the previous year. An EBITDA of 5.76 million euros and a margin of 36 percent represent a tripling of results over the first six months of 2007. This takes into account that the company incurred expenses amounting to 768 thousand euros during Q2 arising from discontinued M&A activities. These costs have been adjusted, as they are non-recurring. Having amounted to 7.86 million euros in the first six months of 2007, the Subscriptions segment of XING AG generated a total of 12.64 million euros in the current reporting period. This strong growth can be predominantly attributed to an increase in the number of Premium Members. The number of Premium Members rose by 50 thousand in Q2 2008 alone. In the first six months of 2008 altogether, XING AG gained 108 thousand new Premium Members. As of June 30, 2008, there were approximately 470 thousand paying Premium Members in total. The overall membership base also increased by 1.31 million as a result of organic growth and the acquisition of competitor networks (cember.net in Q1/2008) to a total of 6.14 million members worldwide. The new business models introduced in Q4 2007 have also established themselves successfully during the course of the first six months.

The new business models Advertising and eCommerce already constitute 20 percent of the Company’s overall revenues. Revenues from Advertising amounted to 1.13 million euros for the reporting period. Revenues of 610 thousand euros were generated in Q2 2008 alone. The eCommerce business model resulted in revenues totalling 1.96 million euros in the first half-year of 2008 for XING AG, after the Company introduced a performance-oriented billing system in October 2007. XING Marketplace constitutes the main source of revenue in the eCommerce segment with approximately 2.46 million clicks for job listings.

Preliminary & unaudited KPIs according to IFRS

¹ Incl. other operating income
² Adjusted for extraordinary items resulting from the IPO
³ Adjusted for non recurring expenses resulting from discontinued M&A processes (€768k)

Important notice:
Provisional financing figures and proforma figures subject to confirmation

The results and figures published in this notification are unaudited and have been determined by the company on the basis of the provisional annual financial statements and the previous annual financial statements for the specified periods in order to enable a better comparison to be made, and also to present exceptional factors; some of the figures have been calculated on a pro-forma basis. The provisional financial figures may be the subject of changes when the annual financial statements are audited. Although, in the opinion of XING AG, the proforma figures reflect the direction of development of ordinary business and the current status of the company, there is no guarantee that the proforma figures precisely reflect this development direction and this status.

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