Line, stylised as LINE, is a freeware app for instant communications on electronic devices such as smartphones, tablet computers and personal computers. Line users exchange: texts, images, video and audio and conduct free VoIP conversations and video conferences. In addition, Line is a platform providing various services including: digital wallet as Line Pay, news stream as LINE Today, video on demand as Line TV and digital comic distribution as Line Manga and Line Webtoon. The service is operated by Line Corporation, a Tokyo-based subsidiary of Z Holdings.
Line was launched in Japan in June 2011 by NHN Japan, a subsidiary of Naver Corporation. Because it was tailored to Japanese consumers’ tastes and offered free smartphone calls as well as texting, with the help of a massive marketing campaign it quickly outpaced its existing rival KakaoTalk for the Japanese market. It reached 100 million users within 18 months and 200 million users six months later. Line became Japan’s largest social network in 2013, with more than 300 million users. By February 2015 it had 600 million users.
| Website | line.me/en/ |
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In March 2021, SoftBank Group affiliate and Yahoo! Japan operator Z Holdings completed a merger with Line Corporation. Under the new structure, A Holdings, a subsidiary of SoftBank Corporation and Naver Corporation, will own 65.3% of Z Holdings, which will operate Line and Yahoo! Japan. Line is the most popular messaging application in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand.
History
In South Korea, the home of NHN Japan’s parent company Naver Corporation, Naver had launched a messaging app called Naver Talk for the South Korean market in February 2011. However, rival Korean company Kakao had first-mover advantage with its KakaoTalk app launched in March 2010 and easily dominated the Korean market by March 2012.
Naver/NHN co-founder and chairman Lee Hae-Jin and a team of engineers were in Japan when the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami struck in March 2011. Naver/NHN had been in Japan for ten years, trying to build a Japanese search and portal business, since NHN’s other international ventures had stagnated. The earthquake and tsunami left millions without power and phone lines and SMS networks were overwhelmed. Since Wi-Fi and some 3G remained largely usable, many people turned to KakaoTalk, which was just beginning to gain a foothold in Japan. Lee was inspired to launch a messaging and chat app in the wake of the disaster and his NHN Japan team was testing a beta version of an app accessible on smartphones, tablet and PC, which would work on data network and provide continuous and free instant messaging and calling service within two months. The app was launched as Line in June 2011.
Because Naver/NHN had a far superior cultural knowledge of what Japanese users wanted, and a much larger corporate marketing budget, Line quickly surpassed KakaoTalk in Japan. Line also offers free voice calls and, since Japan’s telecoms make customers pay for both SMSs and smartphone calls, this feature, which KakaoTalk did not have, was a major selling point.
The app proved hugely popular, and by late October 2011, Line experienced an unexpected server overload. To improve scalability to accommodate its exponential rise in new users, NHN Japan chose HBase as the primary storage for user profiles, contacts and groups. In December 2011, Naver announced that Naver Talk would be merged into Line, effective early 2012.
In July 2012, NHN Japan announced the new Line features Home and Timeline. The features allowed users to share recent personal developments to a community of contacts in real-time, similar to the status updates in social networking services such as Facebook. On April 1, 2013, Naver’s Japanese branch name was changed from NHN Japan to Line Corporation
Line became Japan’s largest social network by the end of 2013, with more than 300 million registrants worldwide, of which more than 50 million users were within Japan. In October 2014, Line announced that it had attracted 560 million users worldwide with 170 million active user accounts. In February 2015, it announced the 600 million users mark had been passed and 700 million were expected by the end of the year.
Line was originally developed as a mobile application for Android and IOS smartphones. The service has since expanded to: BlackBerry OS (August 2012), Nokia Asha (Asia and Oceania, March 2013),[31][32] Windows Phone (July 2013), Firefox OS (February 2014), IPadOS (October 2014) and as a Chrome Browser Application (via the Chrome Web Store). The application also exists in versions for laptop and desktop computers using the Microsoft Windows and MacOS platforms..
In July 2016, Line Corporation held IPOs on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
In late December 2020, Line Corporation delisted from both the New York Stock Exchange and the Tokyo Stock Exchange, in advance of its absorption-type merger agreement with Z Holdings.
On March 1, 2021, Line Corporation merged with Yahoo! Japan, which has been operated by Z Holdings, a SoftBank Group subsidiary. Under the new structure, Naver Corporation (Line’s former parent company) and SoftBank Corp (the wireless carrier unit of SoftBank Group). Each one hold 50% stakes in a new company named A Holdings Corp., which holds a majority stake in Z Holdings, which now operates Line and Yahoo! Japan. Upon integrating the two businesses and creating further platforms, the merged company aims to compete with the U.S. tech giants: Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple and the Chinese tech giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, as well as the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten. The merger also gives Z Holdings three additional Asian markets where Line is popular: Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia.
