Ushering in a new rat race among messaging apps, Japan-based Line
Corporation on Tuesday announced that it garnered over five million
registered users in India within three weeks of its launch. The
messaging app is among the most popular globally with over 200 million
users out of which 80 per cent are monthly average users.
Chief
Strategy and Marketing Officer Jun Masuda told Business Today that the
company will be focusing on increasing its base in India and was also
looking at opening a local office soon. It will be adding local
languages as well as stickers with Indian themes in the near future, he
added.
Giving users access to stickers, themes and games, Line
is among the most monetized messaging apps globally. It allows creation
of brand IDs and stickers.
Masuda said Line is one of the
fastest growing apps worldwide. It reached 100 million users in 19
months, compared to 49 months for Twitter and 54 for Facebook. It is
also among the 12 apps to have crossed 100 million users on Google Play
store.
In India, the company will face competition from
WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, BlackBerry Messenger and WeChat.
Incidentally, Facebook has just announced that its phone app now has
over 100 million users. However, Masuda says only Line provides a rich
experience as well as variety of options to users by offering over 8,000
stickers and 30 games.
