Japanese Voice App Hits 10 Million Users in First 6 Months, Claims Faster Start than Facebook

Back in October we told you about how Naver Japan’s mobile messenger app ‘Line’ had hit two million downloads in its first three months. Remarkably the app hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down as the company announced today that it has hit 10 million downloads in December.

That’s a pretty impressive first six months for Line. Since adding voice call functionality in October its growth has picked up (see Line graph below), with about 40 percent of downloads coming from Japan, and 60 percent coming from abroad, most notably regions like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Naver Japan’s chief strategist and senior manager of business strategy development, Jun Masuda noted:

This fast growth of LINE, 10 million users in 6 months, overwhelms that of the top international social networking sites such as Facebook, taking 28 months (852 days) and Twitter, taking 26 months (780 days) to reach the same milestone [1], making us realize the enthusiasm of our users’ response.

Download Growth (iPhone, Android)

There are big expectations for 2012 too, with a planned release of a video call feature, as well as versions of Line for PC and tablets. You can check out screenshots of the Line iOS app below. It’s also available for Android as well.