Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Xing AG, the German business networking Web site operator formerly known as Open Business Club AG, said third-quarter profit rose as it attracted more customers.

Net income increased to 1.17 million euros ($1.72 million) from 318,000 euros a year earlier, Hamburg-based Xing said in a statement on its Web site today. The number of customers rose to 4.25 million from 1.45 million a year earlier.

Xing, whose Web site allows professionals to search for contacts, said this month it plans to introduce advertising on its platform by the end of this year to generate additional sales. The company has expanded abroad this year and bought Spanish contact-network Web site operators eConozco and Neurona. Xing in June also agreed to cooperate with Zoom Information Inc. to enter the U.S. market.

``In the coming months Xing will focus on integrating the subsidiaries into the group, and on migrating the acquired member profiles to the Xing platform,'' the company said in the statement. ``A second key initiative for the rest of this year and the coming year will be to attract paying members from the ranks of ZoomInfo users.''

Sales rose 85 percent to 4.94 million euros in the third quarter, the company said.

Xing today confirmed its forecast to ``approximately'' double revenue this year, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to be 30 percent to 35 percent of sales. Xing had sales of 10.1 million euros last year.

``We expect further strong growth for the future,'' Chief Executive Officer Lars Hinrichs said in an interview.

Xing shares fell 1.5 percent to 40.64 euros in Frankfurt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Philipp Grontzki in Frankfurt at pgrontzki@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 20, 2007 12:16 EST