The Growth Story and Future of Mobile Chat App Giant LINE

Mr. Kang Hyunbin, head of business office at LINE Plus Corp

Popular mobile messaging chat app LINE was created by NHN Japan inspired by the tragic earthquake that happened in Japan in 2011. When SMS and calls were unreliable during the disaster, data messaging became the primary mode of communication.

As LINE’s popularity grew, the app was spun-off in February this year into the LINE Corp subsidiary. Besides facilitating chats between users, it has truly become a mobile platform incorporating different digital content including games and manga. Growing to 150 million users in less than two years hasn’t been easy. One of the reasons why LINE has been able to grow so rapidly was because it has listened closely to its users’ needs. Hyunbin Kang, who is the head of LINE Business Office at LINE Plus (which supports LINE’s overseas expansion) told me:

I think users in Japan and the users in the world actually provide us the reason why we develop LINE and what [way] to develop Line. Our users are kinda our co-founders.

Line characters and content

Hyunbin also believes that LINE’s success hinges hugely on its rich content and user interface. For example LINE users can express themselves with more than just words – there are the stickers that I would call an upgraded version of emoticons, and they have been hugely popular in Asia. LINE has been extremely smart in developing different personalities for each of its sticker characters.

Starting with Cony, Brown, Moon, and James, these characters, who each represent different personalities, have been a huge hit in Asia. In Japan, LINE’s kawaii characters are broadcast on TV in cartoon form and can also be found for sale as plush toys, T-shirts, and other merchandise. Take the pictured screenshot as an example. Expressing our sincere goodbyes to friends using stickers can be that fun.

LINE also has games to entertain its users. One of its more popular games, LINE Pop, is popular not just in Japan but also Thailand and Taiwan. So much so that it even has tutorial videos on tips and tricks to get more points.

Hyunbin told me that LINE’s recently released manga content has been successful in Japan and the company has plans to bring it to other parts of the world.

LINE outside of Japan

LINE will continue to expand beyond its success in Japan, and reach out to various countries around the world. The ambitious chat application has been aggressively expanding to China, Vietnam, and Indonesia recently using both online and offline marketing tactics.

Chatting up China

Thailand, Indonesia, Spain, and more

“We have no time to be worried about IPO.”