THE BRIDGE

tag line corporation

Line launches its kids’ movie app on iOS

SHARE:

See our report on Line Kids Movies in Japanese A few weeks back Line Corporation announced that it would be releasing a movie app for children called Line Kids Movies. That application officially went live today on iOS [1], and if you’re in Japan and have kids, you may want to check it out. Programs included on the platform include Astro Boy, Pokemon, and Doraemon. As we mentioned previously, it’s a paid subscription service. But you can also earn watching time by sharing videos to your friends as well. As you can see in the screenshot below, there’s a timer in the top corner that tracks your remaining video time, an interesting device that will likely serve as a interesting way to bring new users to the service. I personally wouldn’t pay for such a service right now, but if it were ever to become available as a dedicated app on Apple TV, I’d likely give it a try. Android will follow soon.  ↩

line-kids-movie

See our report on Line Kids Movies in Japanese

A few weeks back Line Corporation announced that it would be releasing a movie app for children called Line Kids Movies. That application officially went live today on iOS [1], and if you’re in Japan and have kids, you may want to check it out. Programs included on the platform include Astro Boy, Pokemon, and Doraemon.

As we mentioned previously, it’s a paid subscription service. But you can also earn watching time by sharing videos to your friends as well. As you can see in the screenshot below, there’s a timer in the top corner that tracks your remaining video time, an interesting device that will likely serve as a interesting way to bring new users to the service.

I personally wouldn’t pay for such a service right now, but if it were ever to become available as a dedicated app on Apple TV, I’d likely give it a try.

screenshot from Line Kids Movies
screenshot from Line Kids Movies

  1. Android will follow soon.  ↩

Line provides free calls to phones in Chile after 8.2 magnitude quake

SHARE:

In the wake of the massive earthquake in Chile this week, Japan’s Line Corporation is allowing users of Line Call to make free phone calls to the country between now and April 10, with a call duration limit of between 15 and 20 minutes [1]. From the company’s announcement: In order to enable LINE users to check on the safety of their relative and loved ones in Chile and aid in disaster relief efforts, we will be making all calls made to landlines and cellular phones in Chile through our service LINE Call free of charge for one week. Users in countries where the service is offered will not have to worry about telephone fees or charges. For more details, check out Line’s official blog. From countries where Line Call is available.  ↩

In the wake of the massive earthquake in Chile this week, Japan’s Line Corporation is allowing users of Line Call to make free phone calls to the country between now and April 10, with a call duration limit of between 15 and 20 minutes [1]. From the company’s announcement:

In order to enable LINE users to check on the safety of their relative and loved ones in Chile and aid in disaster relief efforts, we will be making all calls made to landlines and cellular phones in Chile through our service LINE Call free of charge for one week. Users in countries where the service is offered will not have to worry about telephone fees or charges.

For more details, check out Line’s official blog.


  1. From countries where Line Call is available.  ↩

Line Mall listed 100,000 items for sale in two weeks, sold 20% of them

SHARE:

Japanese mobile giant Line Corporation announced today that its recently released Line Mall mobile commerce application has been downloaded 1.2 million times in its first two weeks [1]. There have been 100,000 items made available for sale during that period, in during which Line has decided not to take any commission from sellers here in Japan. The company says that of those items, more than 20,000 have sold. This is a beta period of sorts for Line Mall, which is set to make its official launch later in the year. Line (Japanese) As of March 19.  ↩

LINE_Hello_Friends_2013_Japan_0566

Japanese mobile giant Line Corporation announced today that its recently released Line Mall mobile commerce application has been downloaded 1.2 million times in its first two weeks [1]. There have been 100,000 items made available for sale during that period, in during which Line has decided not to take any commission from sellers here in Japan. The company says that of those items, more than 20,000 have sold.

This is a beta period of sorts for Line Mall, which is set to make its official launch later in the year.

Line (Japanese)


  1. As of March 19.  ↩

Japan’s Line meets 2013 goal of 300M users, wants half billion in 2014

SHARE:

Japan’s Line Corporation, which previously stated that its goal for this year was to hit 300 million users, has just announced that it has met that target as of today. And perhaps even more ambitiously, the company says it wants to hit 500 million by the end of 2014. Check out the chart of Line’s user growth to date in their chart below. That 500 million total would put it up among the world’s social big boys, but still trailing Facebook which has over a billion users. China’s WeChat is its primary Asia rival, but that service (in my view) may not have the global appeal that Line has. Line’s most recent sales figures (for July to September 2013) were up 48% on the previous quarter, with 60% of its sales coming from games, and 20% coming from its stamps business.

LINE_Hello_Friends_2013_Japan_0569

Japan’s Line Corporation, which previously stated that its goal for this year was to hit 300 million users, has just announced that it has met that target as of today. And perhaps even more ambitiously, the company says it wants to hit 500 million by the end of 2014.

Check out the chart of Line’s user growth to date in their chart below.

That 500 million total would put it up among the world’s social big boys, but still trailing Facebook which has over a billion users. China’s WeChat is its primary Asia rival, but that service (in my view) may not have the global appeal that Line has.

Line’s most recent sales figures (for July to September 2013) were up 48% on the previous quarter, with 60% of its sales coming from games, and 20% coming from its stamps business.

line-300-million

Now with 200M game downloads, Line Corporation adds MapleStory title

SHARE:

Line Corporation made some headlines earlier today when it announced that its games lineup had surpassed 200 million downloads [1]. There are more than 230 million registered users for its Line chat platform, and many of them are spending time with the company’s many casual game titles to date. What’s most interesting to me about Line’s gaming success so far is that it has all been with relatively unremarkable IP. Its biggest game to date in terms of downloads has been Line Pop with over 32 million, followed by Line Bubble with 25 million. But I’m expecting even bigger figures when Sonic Dash comes to Line this fall. Nexon’s Maple Story celebrated its tenth anniversary this year In addition to announcing its lofty downloads milestone, the company also rolled out Line MapleStory Village today. This is a farm/town-building game from the successful Maple Story franchise by Nexon, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. Line MapleStory Village is currently available in Japanese, English, and traditional Chinese, and is available worldwide with the exceptions of China and South Korea. This game should fare well around the Asia region even without those big markets [2]. If you’d like to give it a…

LINE MapleStory Village

Line Corporation made some headlines earlier today when it announced that its games lineup had surpassed 200 million downloads [1]. There are more than 230 million registered users for its Line chat platform, and many of them are spending time with the company’s many casual game titles to date.

What’s most interesting to me about Line’s gaming success so far is that it has all been with relatively unremarkable IP. Its biggest game to date in terms of downloads has been Line Pop with over 32 million, followed by Line Bubble with 25 million. But I’m expecting even bigger figures when Sonic Dash comes to Line this fall.

Nexon’s Maple Story celebrated its tenth anniversary this year

In addition to announcing its lofty downloads milestone, the company also rolled out Line MapleStory Village today. This is a farm/town-building game from the successful Maple Story franchise by Nexon, which celebrated its tenth anniversary this year.

Line MapleStory Village is currently available in Japanese, English, and traditional Chinese, and is available worldwide with the exceptions of China and South Korea. This game should fare well around the Asia region even without those big markets [2].

If you’d like to give it a try, you can get it now as a free download for iOS and Android. Check out the trailer below for a preview.

For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of games, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011.


  1. The milestone was reached on September 6th, according to the company.  ↩

  2. And even though it is a stupid farm/town-building game…  ↩

Check out the sights from LINE’s ‘Hello Friends’ event [Photos]

SHARE:

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending Line Corporation’s ‘Hello Friends in Tokyo’ event, the second such conference for the Japanese mobile powerhouse. If you’d like to replay the event in its entirety, it’s still available over on Ustream. We covered all the highlights here if you’d like a quick rundown. But for those who couldn’t attend the event in person, we thought we’d share some of the sights that weren’t shown on the livestream. If you check out the photos below, you can see some of the fun that took place outside the conference hall, most of which focused around Line’s characters and a merchandise shop. It was somewhat symbolic that Line held this event right next to Tokyo Disneyland, perhaps making a subtle statement about their aspirations for the Line character business, now being rebranding as ‘Line Friends.’ For even more information on the growth Line, check out our interactive Line Timeline, now in both English and Japanese.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of attending Line Corporation’s ‘Hello Friends in Tokyo’ event, the second such conference for the Japanese mobile powerhouse. If you’d like to replay the event in its entirety, it’s still available over on Ustream. We covered all the highlights here if you’d like a quick rundown.

But for those who couldn’t attend the event in person, we thought we’d share some of the sights that weren’t shown on the livestream. If you check out the photos below, you can see some of the fun that took place outside the conference hall, most of which focused around Line’s characters and a merchandise shop.

It was somewhat symbolic that Line held this event right next to Tokyo Disneyland, perhaps making a subtle statement about their aspirations for the Line character business, now being rebranding as ‘Line Friends.’

For even more information on the growth Line, check out our interactive Line Timeline, now in both English and Japanese.

Reception at the event. At this point I'm suspecting there will be lots of green today.
Reception at the event. At this point I’m suspecting there will be lots of green today.
Line's fancy press passes. Very cool.
Line’s fancy press passes. Very cool.
Line characters
Line characters guard the entrance to the auditorium
Line's in-house media crew getting ready
Line’s in-house media crew getting ready
CEO Akira Morikawa on stage
CEO Akira Morikawa on stage. Nice suit.
Line animations play before intermission
Line animations play before intermission
During the 20 minute break, attendees could check out the line store. These three greet you at the entrance.
During the 20 minute break, attendees could check out the line store. These three greet you at the entrance.
Line Pop and Line Pokopang roulette. Win some balloons and other merch.
Line Pop and Line Pokopang roulette. Win some balloons and other merch.
Line character James etched in frosted glass on the store window
Line character James etched in frosted glass on the store window
Line characters were in attendance too, getting pics taken with attendees
Line characters were in attendance too, getting pics taken with attendees
more photo ops
more photo ops
Line character figures near the entrance
Line character figures near the entrance
A souvenir from the show. Line character donut. I bit into his head!
A souvenir from the show. Line character donut. I bit into his head!

With 230M registered users, LINE reveals 3 new services, global expansion plans

SHARE:

For Japanese coverage of Line’s event, see here and here. Line Corporation held a press conference today in Tokyo where it revealed some information about its progress this far, as well as its plans for the near future. It was at this same ‘Hello Friends in Tokyo’ event last year that the company announced that it would expand from a chat application to a mobile platform. Now hosting everything from games to manga to news, Line is has become a mobile content portal that is wildly popular in Japan and quickly growing around the world. The company disclosed the most recent user numbers for its Line service, with 230 million registered users. Of those, 47 million come from Japan, 18 million from Thailand, 17 million from Taiwan, 15 million from Spain, and 14 million in Indonesia. Information with high public value can be disseminated faster and widely on Line in times of disaster There have been over 7 billion messages and 1 billion stickers sent as of August 2013. And as we previously mentioned, the company made 9.77 billion yen in Q2, a 66.9% increase over the same period last year. CEO Akira Morikawa took the stage to give some…

line morikawa

For Japanese coverage of Line’s event, see here and here.

Line Corporation held a press conference today in Tokyo where it revealed some information about its progress this far, as well as its plans for the near future.

It was at this same ‘Hello Friends in Tokyo’ event last year that the company announced that it would expand from a chat application to a mobile platform. Now hosting everything from games to manga to news, Line is has become a mobile content portal that is wildly popular in Japan and quickly growing around the world.

The company disclosed the most recent user numbers for its Line service, with 230 million registered users. Of those, 47 million come from Japan, 18 million from Thailand, 17 million from Taiwan, 15 million from Spain, and 14 million in Indonesia.

Information with high public value can be disseminated faster and widely on Line in times of disaster

There have been over 7 billion messages and 1 billion stickers sent as of August 2013. And as we previously mentioned, the company made 9.77 billion yen in Q2, a 66.9% increase over the same period last year.

CEO Akira Morikawa took the stage to give some brief updates about the service. He revealed that the app is seeing 63,000 new users every hour. And on Google Play, Line is one of the few apps to exceed 100 million users. He says that while it is a service born in Japan, it now has 80% of its users elsewhere.

Morikawa also pointed out the usefulness of Line during disasters:

Information with high public value can be disseminated faster and more widely on Line in times of disaster. It is starting to become a sort of infrastructure. We’d like to turn like into a common language across the world, and our growth strategy is based on this.

Jun Masuda
Chief strategy and marketing officer, Jun Masuda

Jun Masuda, the company’s chief strategy and marketing officer, said that there have been 290 million downloads of Line’s family of apps. This includes 48 million for Line Camera, 14 million for Line Play, 13 million for Line Card, and 8 million for Line Brush. For some Japan-specific services, good progress has been seen too. Line Manga for example has 3 million downloads.

As we have noted before, Line’s repertoire of games has been successful as well, with over 190 million downloads. It was also revealed for the first time today that Line Timeline has 73 million users around the world. It has grown by 330% says Masuda.

Masuda also disclosed that sticker sales, which are a huge part of the company’s business, now accounts for more than 1 billion yen per month (or more than $10 million).

He spoke about the company’s merchandise licensing business, noting the sales of Line character goods already account for 4 billion yen in sales. He added that the company will be rebranding the character business as ‘Line Friends’, and they hope to accelerate that business in the future.

Line's director Takeshi Idezawa
Line’s director Takeshi Idezawa

He also explained that in some developing countries, many people would like to buy stickers and play games, but they can’t because of the credit card barriers. He explained that moving forward they will support Paypal and prepaid cards as well, the latter starting in Japan at major convenience stores like 7-eleven and Lawson.

After Masuda, Line’s director Takeshi Idezawa took the stage to speak about the company’s marketing business. He explained that the nature of mobile messaging lets companies develop an emotional bond with their customers. He pointed to Lawson has a standout company using the platform, now with more than 10 million friends. 500,000 of these have used the company’s Line-distributed coupons in stores.

Idezawa added that they also want to expand their marketing efforts to new regions across the globe, using it in other markets as they have thus far here in Japan.

Line Games

Line Sonic Dash
Line Sonic Dash

Masuda spoke about Line’s game platform, disclosing that they had 2.6 billion yen in monthly revenue in July 2013. Line Games are based on your real social graph, playing with your actual friends. And based on that idea their games have been casual and simple enough for anyone to start playing at any time. ‘Ease of start’ was important for any games they bring to their platform. He says that Line Pop now has 32 million downloads and 4.3 billion yen in total revenue. Line Bubble has 25 million downloads and 1.9 billion yen in total revenue.

Both Line Wind runner and Line Pokopang had 14 million downloads a piece to date, the latter being particularly successful having just launched in May.

Line Games now aspires to go global, after experiencing success in Japan and around Asia. To that end, they will be rolling out a new lineup of games, including Sonic Dash through coorperation with Sega.

Our next target is to turn Line into a universal language.

CEO Morikawa said that Line is the fastest growing globalized service, supporting a 17 languages starting this month, with more to come. They are trying to be the top instant message brand in each country, and to do this they need more locally relevant content, and they have processes in place for that. He provided the examples of Thailand and Spain where they have been moving up while competitor What’s App has not been doing quite as well.

They also have involved local celebrities to help promote Line in different regions like Indonesia, India, and Mexico. Line is now targeting 300 million by the end of this year, and they will be active in the US and Europe to reach that goal. When asked about North America in the Q&A session, Morikawa says that we can expect to see some activity near the end of this year. He added “Our next target is to turn Line into a universal language.”

Video calls, Music, E-commerce on the way

Masuda again took the stage to explain that the company’s new 3C plan, focusing on communication, contents, and commerce. He introduced a few new upcoming services, first announcing video calls. This is not entirely surprising, given the recent trend of companies jumping into mobile video.

He also revealed that Line Music will be rolled out soon, not a separate app but rather included in Line’s basic functions. Masuda said that you’ll be able to listen and share with friends too, although it will be curious to see how many music labels are on board with this when it launches. The service will not be just for Japan, but outside the country as well.

The third new service announced will be Line Mall. The idea here, says Masuda, will be to create a new shopping experience on Line.

Development of these new services are being finalized and they are coming in the fall of 2013.

For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011.

Video Call

LINE MUSIC

LINE MALL001

LINE reports solid Q2 earnings, aims for 300M users by year’s end

SHARE:

See also our Japanese report on Line’s Q2 earnings Line Corporation has announced its second quarter earnings for 2013, highlighted by revenue of 12.8 billion yen (or about $132 million). That amounts to 348.9% growth over the same time the previous year, and 45.3% over the previous quarter. The company attributed most of this to its core LINE business, which alone accounted for 9.77 billion yen (or just over $100 million), growing 66.9% over first quarter revenue as you can see in the chart above. The announcement notes that 53% of its revenue was in-game purchases, and 27% through sticker purchases. Line Corporations CEO Akira Morikawa expects more good things for his company as the year progresses: We will continue to actively invest in new opportunities and conduct new challenges so as to become a common piece of communication infrastructure worldwide, and aim to achieve 300 million users within 2013. This news is pretty solid validation of the company’s gaming business especially, which includes titles like Line Pop, Wind Runner, Neko Copter, and recent addition Fluffy Diver. We’re looking forward to following Line in its effort to become the world’s preferred mobile portal, and we’ll keep up updated on its…

line-q2

See also our Japanese report on Line’s Q2 earnings

Line Corporation has announced its second quarter earnings for 2013, highlighted by revenue of 12.8 billion yen (or about $132 million). That amounts to 348.9% growth over the same time the previous year, and 45.3% over the previous quarter.

The company attributed most of this to its core LINE business, which alone accounted for 9.77 billion yen (or just over $100 million), growing 66.9% over first quarter revenue as you can see in the chart above. The announcement notes that 53% of its revenue was in-game purchases, and 27% through sticker purchases.

Line Corporations CEO Akira Morikawa expects more good things for his company as the year progresses:

We will continue to actively invest in new opportunities and conduct new challenges so as to become a common piece of communication infrastructure worldwide, and aim to achieve 300 million users within 2013.

This news is pretty solid validation of the company’s gaming business especially, which includes titles like Line Pop, Wind Runner, Neko Copter, and recent addition Fluffy Diver.

We’re looking forward to following Line in its effort to become the world’s preferred mobile portal, and we’ll keep up updated on its progress in the future.

For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until now.

Unstoppable: Popular mobile chat app Line surpasses 200M users

SHARE:

Line Corporation has announced today that its popular mobile chat application has surpassed the 200 million registered user milestone. This comes not too long after it passed 150 million back on April 30th. For the mathematically impaired, that means an additional 50 million users in the 11 weeks since that time – a few weeks quicker than its previous 50 million. The Android version of the chat app also reached the 100 million downloads milestone on July 18th, no doubt driven by increased adoption around the Asia region. Line began its campaign for the Indian market earlier this month, the first of the major Asian chat apps to do so. The company has yet to really make a serious push for the US market, but we expect to see that sometime this year. For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

line_users
Line’s journey to 200 million

Line Corporation has announced today that its popular mobile chat application has surpassed the 200 million registered user milestone. This comes not too long after it passed 150 million back on April 30th.

For the mathematically impaired, that means an additional 50 million users in the 11 weeks since that time – a few weeks quicker than its previous 50 million.

The Android version of the chat app also reached the 100 million downloads milestone on July 18th, no doubt driven by increased adoption around the Asia region. Line began its campaign for the Indian market earlier this month, the first of the major Asian chat apps to do so.

The company has yet to really make a serious push for the US market, but we expect to see that sometime this year.

For more information on the growth of Line, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.

What’s old is new again: Japan’s Line rolls out mobile novel service

SHARE:

It was just back in April that Line announced it was venturing into the mobile e-book industry with its Line Manga service. Now the company is digging even deeper into the publishing industry, adding ‘Line Novel’ to its repertoire starting on June 4th. What’s interesting about Line Novel is that all publications on the platform will be written by well known authors, exclusively for this platform. These exclusive novels are to be provided for free. Updates about the new releases will be shared on the Line Novel official account @linenovel. To make this initiative, Line partnered with major Japanese publishing house Kodansha, a familiar face for Line from their partnership with Line Manga. Line users can enjoy the electronic publications of their choice by adding the official account of particular novel to their friend list. Two to three episodes of each novel will be delivered weekly. To celebrate the beginning of this service, the company will launch a contest to discover new authors. The winner of the contest will be decided by public voting from Line users. All novels must be previously unpublished, and applications are open until August 15th. Japanese people are accustomed to mobile novels, or ‘keitai shosetsu’…

Line-Novel

It was just back in April that Line announced it was venturing into the mobile e-book industry with its Line Manga service. Now the company is digging even deeper into the publishing industry, adding ‘Line Novel’ to its repertoire starting on June 4th.

What’s interesting about Line Novel is that all publications on the platform will be written by well known authors, exclusively for this platform. These exclusive novels are to be provided for free. Updates about the new releases will be shared on the Line Novel official account @linenovel.

To make this initiative, Line partnered with major Japanese publishing house Kodansha, a familiar face for Line from their partnership with Line Manga. Line users can enjoy the electronic publications of their choice by adding the official account of particular novel to their friend list. Two to three episodes of each novel will be delivered weekly.

To celebrate the beginning of this service, the company will launch a contest to discover new authors. The winner of the contest will be decided by public voting from Line users. All novels must be previously unpublished, and applications are open until August 15th.

Japanese people are accustomed to mobile novels, or ‘keitai shosetsu’ since the days of feature phones which goes way back to year 2006. So in a way, this is a return to an already proven concept, likely an initiative that will be successful for Line.

For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, including Line Novel, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.