LinkedIn partners with Sina, Tencent for new China growth

In a move to expand its presence in China, LinkedIn has launched a Simplified-Chinese language beta site branded “领英”, alongside a joint venture with Sequoia China and China Broadband Capital.The launch marks the biggest project in LinkedIn China since the newly-appointed China president, Derek Shen, took on the role last month.“While we have more than 4 million members in China, we are actually in a start-up mode,” Shen said.“By partnering with Sequoia China and CBC to explore opportunities in China, we hope to be able to refine and localise our offerings to Chinese professionals so that we can help play a part in their success.”Social networking is a booming business in China, the world's biggest online market. To date, LinkedIn China has close to 80,000 local and multi-national companies registered including Lenovo, Tencent and Procter & Gamble.The Chinese-language site launched to capture the trend as Chinese professionals prefer to communicate in native language particularly in a business context.In line with its localised attempt, the new site will integrate with Sina, Tencent and WeChat to widen its user base.With simplified Chinese, LinkedIn is now supported with 22 languages around the world.