Naver's Line Messaging App Is Taking Over Asia

Naver's mobile messaging app, LINE, has become a big hit in Asia. The service has become the most used messaging service in key Asian countries such as Japan or Thailand. With 218 million users, the success of the app is thought to lie in its locally-tailored strategy, where in Bangkok for example LINE launched a service that helped with the delivery of food. This led to around 85% of smartphone users across Thailand using the app, the second largest user base in the world behind Japan. After focussing on the Thai market to start with, LINE is looking to expand, but says that it will continue to use the local strategy that has worked so well. Hoping to continue this way of approaching different cultures, LINE has hinted towards using the current platform to introduce business-to-business solutions, e-commerce and online-to-offline services. LINE's growth since its launch in 2014, follows the trend of increased usage of mobile chat apps in Asia; particularly in China, where user numbers grew from 527 million to 608 million in the last nine months of 2015. 

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