LinkedIn socks it to the market - with revenues up 81% on a year ago

LinkedIn has done it again! The professional networking company "obliterated" forecasts for its earnings, as it has done every quarter since going public, the San Jose Mercury News reported yesterday .

The first of Silicon Valley's social networks to reach the market, LinkedIn has avoided the " drops and spikes" in its stock price that other companies in the sector have suffered, said the paper.

Revenues were $303.6 million, 81 percent higher than the same quarter in 2012 .

The company reported $40.2 million in profit or 35 cents a share. Analysts had expected profits of 19 cents a share on revenues of $280 million, according to Thomson Reuters.

"The company keeps raising the bar and then beating it solidly," Needham analyst Kerry Rice told MarketWatch.

"Investors clearly like LinkedIn's mix of advertising and fee revenue, both of which are experiencing exceptional growth,"Bloomberg Industries analyst Paul Sweeney said.

For the calendar year, LinkedIn barely missed $1 billion in revenues at $972.3 million, 86 percent higher than the 2011 total of $522.2 million. The company brought in 89 cents a share on the year, more than doubling its 2011 profits of 35 cents a share.

The LinkedIn share price gained more than 10 percent to $137 a share . The stock price has never dipped below its IPO price of $45 and was selling for more than three times that amount on Thursday afternoon.

Facebook and Zynga on the other hand have traded lower than their IPO price for most of their lives as public companies.