When we think of instant messaging applications, we usually think of WhatsApp, Telegram or maybe Messenger. And while these are some of the most well-known solutions, there is a huge amount users in our marketThe most interesting. The line is one of the most notable examples. Let’s go back to its origins and try to see where it stands today.

Some applications become reality after long processes of market analysis, planning, development, testing and deployment, which often take months or even years. Others appear on the scene almost spontaneously and, as if that weren’t enough, they evolve against the clock to fill a particular need. The story of the Asian messaging app fits the second example perfectly.

Line, an app developed against time

Line’s origins date back to 2010, when a company called Naver Japan, a subsidiary of the South Korean conglomerate Naver Corporation, decided to consolidate its company. presence in japan, a market that has been with the search engine for some time, but failed to reach the expected commercial projection. The strategy to change this scenario has revolved around the launch of two mobile apps.

First, they would launch a client for a photo storage service, and second, an instant messaging app. According to Toyo Keizai, with this defined roadmap, Naver Japan engineers got to work. A catastrophic event in March 2011 radically changed the company’s plans. The earthquake and tsunami that year left millions of people without electricity.

In addition, communication services such as calling and text messaging began to fail. However WiFi networks and 3G communication continued to operate in some areas. Faced with this reality, many Japanese turned to KakaoTalk, a simple messaging app that took its first steps in the country. Naver Japan’s return was dramatic: they would launch messaging apps first.

In the west, WhatsApp was experiencing a meteoric rise. It launched two years ago, and although it had a pretty juicy start, it’s already ranked among the top 20 mobile apps in the United States, according to Forbes. All of this should be noted before it was acquired by Facebook (now Meta) for $19 billion.

Returning to Japan, the Naver team had a big problem. He devoted most of his resources to developing a photography app that would eventually never see the light of day. Now the managers they asked urgently Launch of the messaging app. Thus, according to one of the project managers, Ayumi Inagaki, they started to develop Line at full speed at the end of April 2011.

After long working sessions where the entire company team worked on one floor, Line was launched in June of the same year, about two months after large-scale development began. It was a free and lightweight application that would only serve to send and receive messages. But two months later, they would add a feature that KakaoTalk did not have: voice calls.

As the devastating effects of the earthquake and tsunami began to wane, the number of Line users was increasing rapidly. Naver Japan didn’t hesitate to set it up. great marketing campaign furthering the market penetration of the new, and somewhat unexpected, flagship product, adding new features to it such as social feed and Instagram-style stories feature.

Exponential growth of the line

Years after its launch, Line has millions of users and the Japanese have incorporated Line into their lives. Increasing the number of employees to 550 in 2014 allowed the company to develop its business model based on other additions related to Japanese popular culture. The goal was clear: they put stickers at the heart of this strategy to attract and achieve their target audience.

Stickers were introduced as a complement to voice messages to convey emotions and were quickly adopted by users. Of course, if you want to use specific stickers you have to pay. And things weren’t bad. By 2016, Line was already billing $270 million a year for this extra added to revenue from paid games offered through the app.

As we can see, Line quickly dropped the “messaging app” title. super app, something like the equivalent of WeChat exploding in China. It has incorporated its own payment system, a taxi service, a newsroom, an online purchasing platform, a Spotify equivalent, and a healthcare service.

A few months after its launch in December 2011, it has already reached 9 million users. The line has just grown. According to the company’s own data, it surpassed the 100 million user barrier in 2015, 150 million in 2017 and 2020. 194 million. However, its target audience is mainly in Japan, Indonesia, Thailand and Taiwan, with a marginal presence in other countries.

In the case of Spain, there is no data on the number of users using Line, but Statista positions the Japanese app as the eighth most used messaging app in the country with a 2.5% market share. The podium continues to consist of what almost everyone knows, namely WhatsApp, Messenger and Telegram.

The truth is, Line did not disappear. In fact, it continues to add users, but their numbers are consolidated in the four aforementioned markets, which account for over 95% of users globally. Still, the app can be downloaded from: Android and iOS, and anyone interested in using it can do so, although of course they may need to invite their favorite people to create an account on the messaging service to chat with them.

Images: lines

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