Line releases regional breakdowns for its 490 million registered users

Today the team behind Line, the popular Japanese mobile messenger best known for its games and stickers, revealed a regional breakdown of its registered user counts.

In the past, Line has consistently disclosed its number of users in key markets like Taiwan, Thailand, and Japan, but the whereabouts of its remaining 300 million-some odd users remained unknown. The company regularly claimed to have strong traction in Southeast Asia and the Spanish-speaking world, and while we wouldn’t doubt the company, it’s nice to finally see some numbers next to country names.

• Global: over 490 million registered users
• Japan: over 52 million registered users
• Indonesia: 30 million
• Thailand: 27 million
• India: 18 million
• Spain: 18 million
• Taiwan: 17 million
• Mexico: 15 million
• Korea: 14 million
• Malaysia: 10 million
• USA: 10 million
• Colombia: 11 million

These numbers more-or-less confirm what Line had told the public previously, though it’s interesting to observe that Indonesia has apparently surpassed Thailand. Of course, it’s the monthly active users that really matter (or really, in the case of a messaging app, it’s the daily active ones that count), and even then, since most chat apps are free to download, only a small percentage of those active users will shell out cash to buy stickers or game related virtual goods. The company raked in US$146 million in revenues for the quarter ending in June 2014.

See: Line revenues spike to $177M as the company shotguns towards an IPO

While those revenues prove how mobile messengers are the killer apps of the smartphone era, many further questions about Line’s business operations remain unanswered. Despite its global reach, it’s not clear if the app is generating much income at all from markets where it’s a second fiddle beside more popular competitors. In addition, the company’s aggressive marketing – billboards, TV ads, and pop-up stores – is sure to be costly, and might not be worth the returns it’s seeing in markets outside of Japan and Taiwan. These questions and more will likely be answered when the company releases its prospectus in advance of its IPO.