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LINE messaging service now has 230 million registered users

Including 15 million in Spain

LINE messaging service now has 230 million registered users
At an annual event for its LINE messaging app, NHN has revealed that the service is gaining strong momentum in various territories outside of its Japanese heartland. 

According to NHN, LINE now has roughly 230 registered users.

The company proceeded to break that figure down, revealing that they have 47 million users in Japan, 18 million in Thailand, 17 million in Taiwan, and 14 million in Indonesia.

Outside of the Asian market the app is gaining a respectable following, having amassed 15 million registered users in Spain.

Convenient revenue

It was also revealed that as of August 2013, approximately 7 billion messages and 1 billion stickers have been sent and received by LINE users.

The release of these figures coincides with the announcement that LINE users will soon be able to buy pre-paid cards at convenience stores in Japan and Taiwan.

The company hopes this will make it easier for customers to buy stickers and other virtual goods -including game IAP.

During Q2 2103, 53 percent of revenue was from in-game transactions.

Global language

Speaking about the service's popularity, company CEO Akira Morikawa suggested that one reason behind the growth is that "information with high public value can be disseminated faster and more widely on LINE."

More obviously, such services are free to use on wifi, contrasting with the cost of using mobile data services. 

"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," concluded Morikawa.

[Source: Startup-Dating blog]

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