Revenue at XING AG, the European online business network, increased by 32% in the first nine months of 2009 compared to the same period last year, according to results announced by the company.

Revenue rose to €33.2m (£29.77m) compared with €25.1m in 2008.

In a statement, the company says: “As before, the continued growth of loyal Premium members was the primary revenue generator for the reporting period. In Q3/2009, 662,000 XING Premium members generated a total of €9.96m in the ‘Subscriptions’ segment. This represents an increase of 9% from last quarter’s results (Q2/2009: €9.18m), and a 34% increase from last year (Q3/2008: €7.42m).”

The company says that because of the cost of investing in the future development of the business, the cumulative group profits for the first nine months of 2009 were lower than those for the same period last year (€2.5m for 2009 vs €4.7m for 2008).

As of September 30, it says that XING had 3.6m members across Europe.

Stefan Gross-Selbeck, chief executive of XING, says: “We’ve invested heavily in expanding our profitable business models, and are satisfied with the development of Q3. As before, our core business drives our growth. Furthermore, we have considerably improved our service for targeted recruiting searches. By doing so, we’re positioning XING as the ideal solution for professional e-Recruiting, and tapping into additional sources of revenues for continued profitable growth.”