Do you remember LINE? This messaging app from over a decade ago He dared to stand up to WhatsApp itselfand there were not a few who believed that they could succeed in wresting the throne from him. The initial momentum based on funny characters and stickers has faded over time, and you may be wondering what happened to this messaging app.

If we look at the most used messaging apps in Spain, LINE is not even on the list, so we might think that it has followed in the footsteps of ICQ and ended up in the landfill, but no. What happened to LINE?

Some promising beginnings

From the ashes of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 (which affected the Fukushima nuclear power plant), LINE, a new messaging app created by NAVER, a Korean company, was born. While the disaster took down the lines, making it impossible to make calls or send text messages, WiFi and 3G connectivity remained usable. So LINE was born in June 2011.

LINE was launched in a colorful and informal style, unlike WhatsApp, and its main attraction is, high quality stickers, very impressive and it has a very generous size. He triumphed in Japan from day one.

This was LINE in 2012

NAVER has figured out how to keep the interest in LINE going by introducing many new features in a short period of time; important milestones such as the app allowing Free calls and video calls since 2013For reference, WhatsApp didn’t add voice calling until 2015, and video calling didn’t arrive until the following year.

LINE, meanwhile, added a miniature Facebook, group chats, sticker and theme store, business profiles, and sticker cartoons. a trading empireWith her own series on Netflix, a cafe franchise and much more.

LINE had something other messaging apps lacked: personality

LINE grew rapidly and tried Copy WeChat’s formula to become the next super appLaunch of additional services such as LINE Man (food delivery), LINE taxi (taxi), LINE Out (VOIP calls), LINE News (news), LINE Pay (payments) and more.

Attempted conquest of Spain

LINE’s rapid growth led its creators to attempt the impossible: conquer Europe. In that case WhatsApp was already very established But that hasn’t stopped attempts to find users interested in something a little different.

LINE promised A more fun and free way to chat than WhatsApp (It wouldn’t have stickers until 2018), doesn’t care about Material Design, has an interface full of colors, and has its own personality.

In addition, it had very interesting additional advantages: there were calls and video calls, and You didn’t have to give your phone number to chatsomething that continues to plague WhatsApp today. Not only that, LINE also had a pretty good PC version back then that didn’t depend on us keeping our phone on, like WhatsApp Web.

Various sticker packs in Spanish. One of them, original from LINE, with texts adapted for the Spanish market

Ads on TV, promotional deals with creators to create sticker packs, and Official stickers translated into Spanish They were part of LINE’s artillery unit trying to gain users in Spain. And to a certain extent, it worked.

But just as the goat pulls up the mountain, Spaniards threw out WhatsApp and our LINE contact list gradually diminished in population until it faded into obscurity.

Big in Japan (and Taiwan and Thailand)

LINE is still alive and birthdays are added

But, LINE is not dead along with some partying. A parran is found mainly in three places: Japan, Thailand and Taiwan.

Statista estimates that LINE currently has 178 million monthly users86 million of them are Japanese. This map from Reddit (compiled with data from Eager Nomad) clearly shows limited areas of LINE in light green. Although the application does not occupy the first place, it still has a significant user base in Indonesia.

LINE is the main messaging app in Japan, Thailand and Taiwan and has a large presence in Indonesia. Map by @Oblimix on Reddit

In these places, LINE has remained strong throughout all these years. The update rate of the application has decreased compared to its early years, but the application has been renewed many times, maintaining its distinctive feature with a unique design in the sea of ​​monotony that is the mobile environment. Today.

Chats are still blue (unless you change them), Brown, Cony, and company stickers are still there, as well as thousands of other creations created by companies and individuals, including statuses, official accounts, music, payments, and their own Discoveries. LINE is the super app that WhatsApp wants to be today.

This is what LINE will look like in 2024

Actually, There is nothing stopping you from using LINE these days.. Although they have given up on efforts to expand their influence outside of Asia, nothing has changed in this regard, and if you manage to convince your circle of friends to use LINE, it’s a really great option. What happened to LINE? LINE never left. We left LINE.

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