See the original story in Japanese. This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here. In contrast with that GREE and Mobage (by DeNA) who released a wide range of web-based game titles, native apps are grabbing much more attention, notably Puzzle & Dragons and Line’s repertoire of gaming apps. But can their revenue be sustained? And how will they lead the smartphone app market? We had a chance to hear from Jun Masuda, chief officer at Line Corporation, where he spoke about how to monetize apps and open the platform to the third-party developers. According to the stats from App Annie CEO Bertrand Schmitt, the Line app was ranked in 4th as of last March, based on consolidated global revenues from the iOS Appstore and Google Play. Masuda: For message app developers, you usually make money by selling stickers, ads, and charging for derivative services. For social network providers, you may might make your living with advertising. But if you rely only on that revenue stream, it’s far too difficult to sustain your business. It’s important to mix up revenue streams, both…
This is part of our coverage of the Infinity Ventures Summit 2013 in Sapporo, Japan. You can read more of our reports from this event here.
In contrast with that GREE and Mobage (by DeNA) who released a wide range of web-based game titles, native apps are grabbing much more attention, notably Puzzle & Dragons and Line’s repertoire of gaming apps. But can their revenue be sustained? And how will they lead the smartphone app market?
We had a chance to hear from Jun Masuda, chief officer at Line Corporation, where he spoke about how to monetize apps and open the platform to the third-party developers.
According to the stats from App Annie CEO Bertrand Schmitt, the Line app was ranked in 4th as of last March, based on consolidated global revenues from the iOS Appstore and Google Play.
Masuda: For message app developers, you usually make money by selling stickers, ads, and charging for derivative services. For social network providers, you may might make your living with advertising. But if you rely only on that revenue stream, it’s far too difficult to sustain your business. It’s important to mix up revenue streams, both charging users and with advertising, and keep that in balance. Sale of stickers is showing good numbers, and the app is ranked in first place if you exclude gaming apps, both on the Google Play and the iOS app store.
Popular stickers, popular characters
Masuda: We’ve had success acquiring users in the Thai market, so non-Japanese also like this concept of decorative communications, adding stickers in chat. Our revenue comes primarily from the Japanese market. Prices for our stickers are common in all around the world. Prices are relatively high for Thai users, but they still like to buy the stickers.
In terms of sticker sale trends, we’re not seeing any apparent gap between the globally version and locally-optimized versions. A sticker showing familiar characters, Brown & Cony, is the best selling one in the global markets. In the countries where local people typically watch Japanese animation films or understand what kawaii means, the Line app business does well. In the rest of the world, however, business is not so good.
Make the most of 150 million users
Masuda: In the latter half of last year, the Line Pop app was the best selling of our gaming apps. For games there have been 140 million downloads, and 25 titles. I can’t disclose revenue numbers, but our strategy is to acquire new gaming users on the Line user base.
We intend to keep introducing titles that female users will like, but we carefully set prices that won’t force them to pay too much. They typically play the games where they like to talk with someone over the phone. We’ll try to think further on how to monetize.
If an app has its name associated with the Line app, it usually has a very high rank in the app store. Prior to the launching the app in the gaming app category, we check if the app behaves as intended, and assure the quality of its user experience.
Opening the platform to third-party developers
Line’s Jun Masuda
Masuda: We are actually receiving many inquires about opening the platform to third-party developers. But there’s no plan for the time being. As we’ve been doing until now, we’ll work with partner developers who have ideas on what kind of games are suitable for Line users. We shutdown the in-company gaming studio team back in April. Kakao has more than 200 gaming titles, which makes me feel the life-cycle of a title is getting shorter. We’re now carefully thinking what to do next.
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.
Back in January of 2012, Japanese carrier NTT Docomo (TYO:9437) attributed a network disruption to free VoIP applications, with popular chat app Line being the first one that it cited. Line, which launched back in mid-2011, was just picking up steam at the time with about 15 million downloads reported at that point, and 5.5 million of those in Japan. Since then of course, the application’s download count is about ten times as high – in Japan, where it has more than 45 million; and abroad, where there are over than 150 million. And while Docomo has itself had time to solidify its network infrastructure to accommodate the kind of data load that apps like Line demand, it can’t be an easy task. So it was interesting to see today that Docomo has decided to partner with Line Corporation, as announced in an event earlier today. There are a few aspects to the companies’ partnership, but the most interesting collaboration will be an original Line application for Android that will include a call button in app that users can use to make voice calls. The goal here, as Docomo itself notes, is to reduce the load on their network. This…
Back in January of 2012, Japanese carrier NTT Docomo (TYO:9437) attributed a network disruption to free VoIP applications, with popular chat app Line being the first one that it cited. Line, which launched back in mid-2011, was just picking up steam at the time with about 15 million downloads reported at that point, and 5.5 million of those in Japan.
Since then of course, the application’s download count is about ten times as high – in Japan, where it has more than 45 million; and abroad, where there are over than 150 million. And while Docomo has itself had time to solidify its network infrastructure to accommodate the kind of data load that apps like Line demand, it can’t be an easy task. So it was interesting to see today that Docomo has decided to partner with Line Corporation, as announced in an event earlier today.
There are a few aspects to the companies’ partnership, but the most interesting collaboration will be an original Line application for Android that will include a call button in app that users can use to make voice calls. The goal here, as Docomo itself notes, is to reduce the load on their network. This will be put in place in September, and will allow users to call other Docomo users for free. Ostensibly, the regular Line voice call button (for VoIP calls) will still be in place.
This is a pretty fascinating maneuver on Docomo’s part, as telcos the world over adjust to a mobile industry shifting from voice to data [1].
The other aspect of the Docomo-Line agreement will bring another original Line application to Docomo’s Raku-Raku smartphones, which target users who aren’t accustomed to smartphones, especially the country’s large senior population. This app will implement preventative measures to limit transactions amounts that may have resulted from accidental purchases.
In addition to striking this partnership with Japan’s largest carrier, this marks a pretty good day for Line. The company also announced that its new manga application has reached a million downloads, this just a little over a month after the service initially launched in Japan.
As for Docomo, the telco isn’t doing too shabby either with more than 12 million LTE subscribers as of April 20th. Oh, and the company announced some new phones today too. But of course, still no iPhone.
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.
As one example, check out this ZDnet piece from yesterday saying that such messaging apps would cost Indian telcos more than a billion dollars this year. Of course that’s a far different mobile landscape than Japan, but it will be interesting to see if any other telecoms try what Docomo is doing. (Perhaps some already have? Let us know in the comments if you know of any) ↩
Japan’s Line Corporation (whose chat app recently hit the 150 million users milestone) disclosed its latest sales figures yesterday, showing first-quarter revenue of 5.8 billion yen (or over $57 million). That’s up 92% compared to the same quarter in the previous year. Line’s sales consists of games, stamps, official accounts, and sponsored stamps. Games amount for about half of its sales, while its stamps business accounts for about 30%. The mobile chat app is now a sort of a global phenomenon, having expanded to places like Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, and Indonesia. But it’s interesting to see that the majority of its sales, about 80%, come from its home market in Japan. Micro-payments for digital contents are not new to Japanese people, going back even to the days of feature phones. We have always paid for music, ringtones, e-books, games, and dedicated carrier-dependent servies such as i-mode. Whether we’re using a feature phone or a smartphone, small and frequent purchases tend to hit your wallet hard. On a related note, there is great article over on Pando Daily from Tom Limongello titled The Japanese Art of Monetization where he explains that Japan’s mobile space has always been monetized. It’s very much…
Japan’s Line Corporation (whose chat app recently hit the 150 million users milestone) disclosed its latest sales figures yesterday, showing first-quarter revenue of 5.8 billion yen (or over $57 million). That’s up 92% compared to the same quarter in the previous year.
Line’s sales consists of games, stamps, official accounts, and sponsored stamps. Games amount for about half of its sales, while its stamps business accounts for about 30%. The mobile chat app is now a sort of a global phenomenon, having expanded to places like Thailand, Taiwan, Spain, and Indonesia. But it’s interesting to see that the majority of its sales, about 80%, come from its home market in Japan.
Micro-payments for digital contents are not new to Japanese people, going back even to the days of feature phones. We have always paid for music, ringtones, e-books, games, and dedicated carrier-dependent servies such as i-mode. Whether we’re using a feature phone or a smartphone, small and frequent purchases tend to hit your wallet hard.
On a related note, there is great article over on Pando Daily from Tom Limongello titled The Japanese Art of Monetization where he explains that Japan’s mobile space has always been monetized. It’s very much worth a read if you have a moment to spare.
Line Camera, one of Line’s 24 apps, is also doing very well, having accumulated 30 million downloads worldwide as of the end of April. The popular photo app launched its own stamp shop on April 2nd, helping reach the top of sales charts in Google Play’s photo category in 45 countries. On the iOS app store, it managed to grab the top spot in the photo category in 12 different countries.
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.
(Read this article in Japanese) We knew this milestone wasn’t far off after Line Corporation CEO Akira Morikawa noted at the recent Japan New Economy Summit that the Line chat app had 140 million users worldwide. But apparently it became official yesterday that Line has hit the 150 million users milestone. As you can see in the company’s fun commemorative line graph above [1], Line only hit the 100 million user mark this past January, so they seem to be having their hockey-stick moment right now. With more than 45 million users in its home market of Japan, Line will likely be limited to a growth rate that is only as fast as domestic smartphone growth. So Line will have to keep up its overseas expansion, which to date has been pretty good. We recently had a chance to hear Line Corporation CEO Akira Morikawa speak about their relatively flexible global strategy, and how he hopes they can operate as a sort of borderless company. Line has even seen some success in China where it briefly became the top social app in the Apple App Store. Currently it’s still in the top 20 for that category. Will Line see the…
We knew this milestone wasn’t far off after Line Corporation CEO Akira Morikawa noted at the recent Japan New Economy Summit that the Line chat app had 140 million users worldwide. But apparently it became official yesterday that Line has hit the 150 million users milestone.
As you can see in the company’s fun commemorative line graph above [1], Line only hit the 100 million user mark this past January, so they seem to be having their hockey-stick moment right now.
Line Corporations CEO Akira Morikawa
With more than 45 million users in its home market of Japan, Line will likely be limited to a growth rate that is only as fast as domestic smartphone growth. So Line will have to keep up its overseas expansion, which to date has been pretty good. We recently had a chance to hear Line Corporation CEO Akira Morikawa speak about their relatively flexible global strategy, and how he hopes they can operate as a sort of borderless company.
Line has even seen some success in China where it briefly became the top social app in the Apple App Store. Currently it’s still in the top 20 for that category.
There’s also China’s WeChat of course, which has more users than both Line and Kakaotalk combined (about 300 million). But I think overseas growth potential for that app is likely held back by concerns about the made-in-China app which make it a harder sell globally.
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.
I wonder if other types of graphs are permitted in the company… “A bar graph, you say? You’re fired!” ↩
Last week we had a chance to hear Line Corporation’s Akira Morikawa talk about his company’s fast and furious global strategy to promote their Line chat application. But it looks like the next few months will see the company quite active marketing to its home market of Japan as well, with a new ‘Line Town’ toy series to be released next month in cooperation with Takaratomy. Line Town, as you may know, is the animation series of the same name that broadcasts on Tokyo TV. Headlining its repertoire of toys will be a sort of imitation smartphone for kids called ‘Line Town MyTouch.’ With the goal of letting kids enjoy Line characters too, this pretend smartphone has a color LCD as well as sliding touch motion designed to look like smartphone interfacing. While there’s not actually a phone function, it looks like this toy handset will use an NFC function to let kids exchange stamps and some messages when one phone contacts another. It will also feature some mini games like picture matching, janken (or rock-paper-scissors), and brain training. The toy phone will be released on August 8, and will be priced at 6825 yen (or about $70). It will…
Last week we had a chance to hear Line Corporation’s Akira Morikawa talk about his company’s fast and furious global strategy to promote their Line chat application. But it looks like the next few months will see the company quite active marketing to its home market of Japan as well, with a new ‘Line Town’ toy series to be released next month in cooperation with Takaratomy. Line Town, as you may know, is the animation series of the same name that broadcasts on Tokyo TV. Headlining its repertoire of toys will be a sort of imitation smartphone for kids called ‘Line Town MyTouch.’
With the goal of letting kids enjoy Line characters too, this pretend smartphone has a color LCD as well as sliding touch motion designed to look like smartphone interfacing. While there’s not actually a phone function, it looks like this toy handset will use an NFC function to let kids exchange stamps and some messages when one phone contacts another. It will also feature some mini games like picture matching, janken (or rock-paper-scissors), and brain training.
The toy phone will be released on August 8, and will be priced at 6825 yen (or about $70). It will be available in three colors: pink, green, and blue. Surely Line Corporation is hoping that if they can promote the Line brand to kids at a young age, that they’ll stick with the brand as they get older and buy real smartphones.
Line Corporation will be releasing a number of other toys as a part of its cooperation with Takaratomy, including a character branded version of the Automee-S smartphone and tablet cleaner that we featured back in February. There will also be a Line Town Message Seal Maker, Line Town figures, a ‘tobisau’ pop-up toy, and Line stamps as well (yes, actual stamps). See the pictures below, or Takaratomy’s website for more information. [Via Impress]
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 message seal makerLine Automee-SLine stampsLine pop-up toy
This is a part of our coverage of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013. In the opening session of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013, we had a chance to hear from the CEO of Line Corporation, Akira Morikawa. The company’s popular Line chat app now boasts over 140 million users around the world, and over 45 million in its home market of Japan. The moderator, Ryuichi Nishida, tried to ask if they have a next target goal in terms of users, but Morikawa-san declined to bite on that one. Morikawa explained a little about the recent rebranding of the company from NHN Japan to Line Corporation, explaining that this decision was largely based on creating a brand intended for global expansion. Mr. Nishida asked about what the company’s localizing strategy is, and whether they plan to establish regional subsidiaries in all the countries or regions where they operate. Interestingly, Morikawa-san explained that they do not, noting that they prefer to operate in a more flexible manner, as a sort of borderless company. He says that when they find some success in a certain region, they do fly there and do business – but they don’t need to be there perpetually. He…
In the opening session of B Dash Camp Fukuoka 2013, we had a chance to hear from the CEO of Line Corporation, Akira Morikawa. The company’s popular Line chat app now boasts over 140 million users around the world, and over 45 million in its home market of Japan. The moderator, Ryuichi Nishida, tried to ask if they have a next target goal in terms of users, but Morikawa-san declined to bite on that one.
Morikawa explained a little about the recent rebranding of the company from NHN Japan to Line Corporation, explaining that this decision was largely based on creating a brand intended for global expansion.
Mr. Nishida asked about what the company’s localizing strategy is, and whether they plan to establish regional subsidiaries in all the countries or regions where they operate. Interestingly, Morikawa-san explained that they do not, noting that they prefer to operate in a more flexible manner, as a sort of borderless company. He says that when they find some success in a certain region, they do fly there and do business – but they don’t need to be there perpetually. He added:
Maybe we were lucky to succeed in each market, but we didn’t think very deeply about [each one]. Japanese companies think too much. They devise a way to do the best [thing] from the start, and then you can’t really go anywhere.
This somewhat echoes his sentiments from last week at the Japan New Economic Summit, with more of an emphasis on speed and agility. This is pretty unique for a company in Japan, and it’s likely the characteristic that contributed to their unique success thus far.
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.
Japanese chat application Line pulled off a pretty impressive feat this week, achieving the top spot in Apple’s Chinese App Store in the social networking category on April 8. This is especially interesting because so far in Asia, each of the big chat app players Line (Japan), Kakaotalk (Korea), and Weixin/WeChat (China) have each dominated on their home turf. For Line to become the top social networking app in China, having only launched back on December 12, is a significant achievement. According to a China Daily report, it was helped along initially by being introduced via Qihoo 360’s Mobile Assistant. After becoming the top social app on Monday, it has since dropped to number two. But the app is still rising in the overall ‘free app’ rankings (currently ranked 7th), and I wouldn’t be surprised if it reaches number one overall in the next few days. Line is branded as ‘Lian wo ’ or ‘Link Me’ in China, with apps available on iOS, Android, and PC. Given the fact that some individuals in China can be hostile towards Japanese brands, it’s encouraging to see a made-in-Japan service getting some love in the country. Weixin is, of course, still China’s dominant…
Japanese chat application Line pulled off a pretty impressive feat this week, achieving the top spot in Apple’s Chinese App Store in the social networking category on April 8.
This is especially interesting because so far in Asia, each of the big chat app players Line (Japan), Kakaotalk (Korea), and Weixin/WeChat (China) have each dominated on their home turf. For Line to become the top social networking app in China, having only launched back on December 12, is a significant achievement.
According to a China Daily report, it was helped along initially by being introduced via Qihoo 360’s Mobile Assistant. After becoming the top social app on Monday, it has since dropped to number two. But the app is still rising in the overall ‘free app’ rankings (currently ranked 7th), and I wouldn’t be surprised if it reaches number one overall in the next few days.
Photo: China Daily
Line is branded as ‘Lian wo ’ or ‘Link Me’ in China, with apps available on iOS, Android, and PC. Given the fact that some individuals in China can be hostile towards Japanese brands, it’s encouraging to see a made-in-Japan service getting some love in the country. Weixin is, of course, still China’s dominant chat app in terms of overall downloads.
On a related note, Korea’s Kakaotalk has recently made a little progress in Japan, announcing last week that it has surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone, although it’s still a distant second to Line’s 45 million.
Weixin, while dominant in China, has a tougherchallenge on its hands in achieving success among non-Chinese users.
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.
I wrote a few weeks back about how with 100 million users, Line is the Japanese Facebook. The popular mobile application is far more than just a chat app, it is now a platform that was built by adding Line Channel back in July of 2012, a place where users can enjoy games, fortune-telling, and even discount coupons. And today Line Corporation added yet another feature to its repertoire: Line Manga. Yes, the company is entering the mobile e-book business, both on iOS and Android. Major publishers such as Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Kodansha have already joined Line Manga with over 30,000 comics available, which can be bought using Line’s vitual currency Line Coin. One popular comic Uchu Kyodai (roughly translated as Space Brothers) is available, and anyone who downloads the comic can redeem exclusive Uchu Kyodai stamps. The first 10 pages of many of the comics can be read for free. Line Manga leverages on Line’s core features allowing users to share their favorite comic on the Line timeline. There’s a campaign running until April 22nd, and anyone who shares their favorite comic on Line can get 10 Line Coins per share (a day), and for the first purchase of…
I wrote a few weeks back about how with 100 million users, Line is the Japanese Facebook. The popular mobile application is far more than just a chat app, it is now a platform that was built by adding Line Channel back in July of 2012, a place where users can enjoy games, fortune-telling, and even discount coupons.
And today Line Corporation added yet another feature to its repertoire: Line Manga. Yes, the company is entering the mobile e-book business, both on iOS and Android. Major publishers such as Shueisha, Shogakukan, and Kodansha have already joined Line Manga with over 30,000 comics available, which can be bought using Line’s vitual currency Line Coin. One popular comic Uchu Kyodai (roughly translated as Space Brothers) is available, and anyone who downloads the comic can redeem exclusive Uchu Kyodai stamps. The first 10 pages of many of the comics can be read for free.
Line Manga leverages on Line’s core features allowing users to share their favorite comic on the Line timeline. There’s a campaign running until April 22nd, and anyone who shares their favorite comic on Line can get 10 Line Coins per share (a day), and for the first purchase of coins, users will receive 500 bonus coins. Another campaign running until May 6th (Golden Week), one volume of top 100 comic titles can be bought for half price.
The e-book industry in Japan already has big players like Rakuten’s Kobo and Amazon’s Kindle. But if anyone is going to succeed in the e-book business, Line certainly has the potential to do so. Japan’s 40% smartphone penetration rate continues to grow and over 45 million people in the country have downloaded the Line app, making it near ubiquitous among smartphone owners.
Mobile device and e-books are a good match in Japan, going back to Keitai Shosetu, or novels read on mobile. Back in 2006 to 2007 when feature phones were still dominant, these written-on-mobile novels were super popular, especially among young girls. It was sort of like blogging a novel. Some were so successful that they were made into actual books.
So for many people in Japan, reading casual manga on the Line app is not going to be an entirely new experience.
For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, including Line Manga, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.
Line chat app users can now enjoy unique stamps from world famous modern artist Takashi Murakami. The stamps were created to commemorate the release of the movie Mememe-no-kurage, a film which saw Murakami assume the role of director for the very first time. As I’ve written in a past article, stamps are often cited to as the reason behind chat apps’ huge success to date, especially in Asia. Silicon Valley’s Path released original stickers within its app at beginning of March, a move that makes sense given that the company is eager to expand to the Japanese market (having also hired a business development person here). Line provides both free stamps and premium stamps which cost about 170 yen (about $1.80) for a set of 40. The platform sells over 300 million yen (about $3,126,000) worth of stamps per month. That works out to about about 60,000 downloads of premium stamps a day. So who is actually buying these stamps? According to a survey conducted by Ceres, its people in their 30s who are the most frequent buyers with one in four people purchasing stamps. This is followed by users in their 20s at 21.8%. Only 10% of teenagers and…
Line chat app users can now enjoy unique stamps from world famous modern artist Takashi Murakami. The stamps were created to commemorate the release of the movie Mememe-no-kurage, a film which saw Murakami assume the role of director for the very first time.
As I’ve written in a past article, stamps are often cited to as the reason behind chat apps’ huge success to date, especially in Asia. Silicon Valley’s Path released original stickers within its app at beginning of March, a move that makes sense given that the company is eager to expand to the Japanese market (having also hired a business development person here).
Line provides both free stamps and premium stamps which cost about 170 yen (about $1.80) for a set of 40. The platform sells over 300 million yen (about $3,126,000) worth of stamps per month. That works out to about about 60,000 downloads of premium stamps a day.
So who is actually buying these stamps? According to a survey conducted by Ceres, its people in their 30s who are the most frequent buyers with one in four people purchasing stamps. This is followed by users in their 20s at 21.8%. Only 10% of teenagers and people over the age of 50 are paying for stamps.
The survey also revealed that official character stamps by corporate brands are very popular with 61% of respondents saying they have downloaded such stamps. On April 2nd, Line kicked off its new campaign where stamps could be redeemed for free after buying certain products. The very first product on board is a Japanese blend tea by Coca Cola Japan. The company worked in collaboration with a major publisher with its hit comic series as GTO and Moteki.
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 Corporation pushed an update to its Wind Runner iPhone game on Tuesday, and since then the title has been top free iOS app many countries around Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and its home market of Japan. The game is a side scrolling platform which was well received upon its release back in mid-February [1]. You can check out our video demo below to get a better idea of how the game plays. The game is promoted through the company’s popular Line chat application, which is the main reason why it has seen this sort of success. To date, the application has 130 million+ downloads, the majority of which are in the Asia region. Wind Runner is also doing reasonably well on Android, ranked as the number two app overall in Taiwan and Singapore, and number four overall in Thailand and Japan. It looks as though Line Corporation’s strategy of releasing television commercials in local markets is working really well. The company recently surpassed 10 million downloads in Spain, and it has been running a commercial there too. As you might expect, Wind Runner is doing well there also, ranked as the sixth most popular free…
Line Corporation pushed an update to its Wind Runner iPhone game on Tuesday, and since then the title has been top free iOS app many countries around Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and its home market of Japan. The game is a side scrolling platform which was well received upon its release back in mid-February [1]. You can check out our video demo below to get a better idea of how the game plays.
The game is promoted through the company’s popular Line chat application, which is the main reason why it has seen this sort of success. To date, the application has 130 million+ downloads, the majority of which are in the Asia region. Wind Runner is also doing reasonably well on Android, ranked as the number two app overall in Taiwan and Singapore, and number four overall in Thailand and Japan.
It looks as though Line Corporation’s strategy of releasing television commercials in local markets is working really well. The company recently surpassed 10 million downloads in Spain, and it has been running a commercial there too. As you might expect, Wind Runner is doing well there also, ranked as the sixth most popular free iOS app. Spain the first market outside of Asia where Line Corporation has seen significant success. But you can expect more countries to follow, particularly the US market later this year.
One country where Wind Runner hasn’t really succeeded yet is South Korea, where rival chat platform Kakaotalk dominates in place of Line. Interestingly, Kakaotalk has been winning some ground in Japan, passing the 10 million downloads mark back on March 24.
For more information on the growth of Line and its vast repertoire of apps, including Wind Runner, please check out our interactive Line Timeline which chronicles its growth from its launch back in 2011 up until the present day.
Note that NHN Japan recently rebranded itself as ‘Line Corporation.’ ↩
Line 
Takeshi Hirano
Rick Martin
Yukari Mitsuhashi
