According to IT Media, LINE, NHN’s mobile messenger, ranks as the number one application most used by smartphone users in Japan with 17,130 users on May 20th. It is followed by Google Play (16,188) and Google Maps (14,229). This fast growing chat application is extending its business territory into Asia and Europe while Whatsapp and other messenger services focus on the U.S. market. This past January, LINE reported that they reached 100 million users in 19 months.
What made LINE grow fast in a short period?
Most of all, the service is simple and fast. There is no meaningless function in the application. It keeps to the rudimentary function such as messaging to friends. Recently, LINE added mVOIP to its original chatting service. This trend can be seen clearly in Korea and other Asian markets where chatting services are booming. Among young people, messaging is the best preferred way to communicate with each other without bothering others. Moreover, messaging through messenger services is free of charge while using SMS costs texting fee.
Secondly, LINE has a user-friendly interface and users can utilize a wide choice of different characters to express their emotional status. These fun factors get people involved with communication itself. These characters have been positioned as a useful method to gain profit as well as to increase users’ interest. In advertisement, LINE focuses on its popular rabbit character-CONY.
After the rise of SNS, internet trend appears to be dominated by the term ‘social’. Facebook and Twitter have grown as a social platform to migrate various silos of internet industry such as contents and games. Now, the axis of the trend has changed to mobile messaging services. This viewpoint is effective in the Asian market. KakaoTalk, the largest mobile messenger service in Korea, is evolving into a contents distribution platform. In May, the top ten most sold games on Google Play in Korea were all social games by KakaoTalk. As mobile interaction becomes the major method of communication among people, new SNS will enter the market competing alongside the traditional SNS. LINE is one of those new players.