Japan-based LINE Corporation, which owns and operates the popular LINE app that we all know and love, just announced their earnings for the third quarter of this year, which encompasses July through September.
LINE Corporation’s revenue for the quarter was JPY 23 billion, an increase of 16.6% over the previous quarter and a 82.9% increase over the same quarter in the previous year. Much of this revenue came from the LINE application itself, which totaled JPY 20.9 billion in the third quarter, a 17.7% increase over the previous quarter and a 104.2% increase over the same quarter in the previous year.
LINE, which most recently launched its Puzzle TanTan game for its platform on iOS and Android, currently has around 170 million monthly active users, almost 87 million of which come from Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. The number of registered users has continued to steadily increase in Europe, South America, and the United States as well.
11 countries around the world have over 10 million users according to LINE. These countries include Colombia (10+ million), the United States (25+ million), and India (30+ million). LINE currently has over 600 million registered users.
Some of LINE’s successful initiatives in its top markets include the Android exclusive LINE Free Coin as well as the growing library of LINE games, which include the popular LINE POP and LINE Get Rich. Localized content has been a part of the company’s growth strategy and this includes the games, LINE stickers and an assortment of LINE add-on apps.
LINE also announced a number of business initiatives this month that includes its own proprietary payment system and the LINE@ Official Account service for owners of SMEs and small shops—and expanding them horizontally to other regions.
“the need for multi-communication apps like LINE … has continued to rise”
“As market conditions continue to rapidly change,” said LINE Corporation CEO Akira Morikawa, “the need for multi-communication apps like LINE, which lets users send stickers, images, video, and other digital content to communicate with each other, shattering the boundaries of the online/offline distinction in order to act as an infrastructure more closely linked to people’s daily lives, has continued to rise, resulting in LINE’s rapid growth.
“With the evolution of LINE into a global communication-centered platform, we will not only continue to operate in Asian countries where we enjoy the top share of the market, but will accelerate our international expansion in order to further grow our services and revenue base.”
Going forward, LINE aims to expand its LINE Manga service globally, implement LINE Pay, and actively promote expansion into the O2O (online to offline) sector. By engaging in partnerships and marketing tie-ups with local companies in countries in the U.S., Spain and other European nations, Mexico, and Columbia, LINE has continued to enjoy growing user numbers, and is now entering a stage of readiness to shift its user base on to the entire LINE platform in these markets.
LINE aims to expand its LINE Manga service globally
In addition to the aforementioned stickers available on the platform, LINE also allows vendors to create and sell their own via the LINE Creators Market, which is a new service that launched in May and one that LINE reveals is growing. As of August 2014, 149,000 creators had 30,000 registered stickers on the service.
Finally, LINE also revealed growth in its advertising business with the increase of companies adopting the LINE Business Connect service, which allows them to utilize a LINE-based feature for sending and receiving messages via an API used with their own CRM base. Furthermore, the LINE@ service, which began in September, continues to attract more companies, leading to further growth in the Asian region.