LINE Mobile Messaging Platform and Social Network Reaches Milestone of 100M Users World Wide

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 18, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- LINE, the world's leading mobile messaging platform with social network service, announced today that it has reached 100M users globally.

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Wildly popular in Asia and rapidly growing in North America and Europe, The LINE app gives users free voice calls on iOS, Windows Phone, and Android over 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi, along with free messaging. Additionally, LINE offers emoji – or stickers – that customers can purchase and use to communicate with one another as well as personalize their user profiles. LINE also includes other popular features such as the LINE Camera and LINE Games, making it a 'Smartphone Life Platform.' As it expands to North America, LINE plans to offer more communications and entertainment content.

"As we grow our business globally, we strive to always be one step ahead of users' needs and offer a wide variety of services to meet their quickly changing tastes," said NHN Japan's CEO Akira Morikawa at an event today in Japan for celebrating LINE's 100M user milestone. He added that, "Based on LINE's dynamic movement, we will tap into this momentum to further reinforce our contents to become the world's number one communication service."

LINE launches in North America with a deep footprint in Asia, where it has evolved into a 'Smartphone Life Platform' since its release in June 2011 as a smartphone messaging service that offered free calling and a variety of emoji stickers. In 2012, LINE rolled out more entertaining and interactive features like LINE Camera, Official Accounts, and games that are currently leading the mobile SNS game market.

Through the release of these new features, LINE has also seen a sharp increase in users in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In particular, LINE had achieved 10M users in both Thailand and Taiwan. LINE also saw growth in Eastern Europe, including Russia and Spanish speaking countries such as Spain, Chile and Mexico. LINE is now recording an average of 3M new subscribers per week.

Within ten months of its release, the LINE Camera reached 20M downloads and currently ranks number one in the camera category of App Stores in 27 countries worldwide. Similarly, LINE integrated games with the mobile messaging application for the first time starting with 'LINE POP,' which hit 10M downloads within 12 days of its release. Presently, there are more than 50M registered players.

LINE takes the mobile messaging application beyond being a mere communication tool with fun games one step further in which it enhances the convenience and safety of its beloved fans. LINE recently released LINE Tools that include various tools for many different daily situations and LINE Antivirus application for free protection against security threats.

To show its appreciation to customers for helping it reach the 100M user milestone, LINE will provide free, limited edition stickers of its most popular characters.

For more information about LINE, please visit its official website http://line.naver.jp/en/.

*Useful Links:
LINE Homepage
PC: http://line.naver.jp/en/
Mobile: http://line.naver.jp/app/en/

For LINE Partner
http://line.naver.jp/partner/pc/index/en

LINE Facebook Page
http://www.facebook.com/line.worldwide

LINE Official Blog
http://en.lineblog.naver.jp/

About LINE
LINE is a smartphone app which allows users to enjoy free calls and messages to one another, both nationally and internationally, regardless of which mobile network provider they are using. Launched in June 2011 by NHN, LINE has more than 100 million users worldwide. It has also been ranked no. 1 in 41 countries in the free app category including Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Macau, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, Israel, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus and Latvia. LINE carries various unique features such as 'instant translation service', 'Official Accounts' that enables users to interact with famous public figures, 'Timeline and Home' to share recent updates with friends, 'Shake it', a fun way of exchanging ids and many 'Emoji/Stickers/Emoticons.'
For more information visit: http://line.naver.jp/en/.

About NHN Corporation
NHN Corporation is Korea's premier Internet company, operating the nation's top search portal, Naver (www.naver.com) the leading online game portal, Hangame (www.hangame.com) the nation's largest children's portal, Jr. Naver (jr.naver.com), Korea's the first online donation portal, Happybean (happybean.naver.com) and microblog service Me2DAY (http://me2day.net/).Starting from the two business pillars of search and games, NHN has rolled out a wide range of innovative and convenient online services that enable people to enjoy their lives. NHN outgrew the confines of the national borders. Not only did we build a good reputation in Japan but it also set up NHN USA, forging toward becoming a world-class internet company. The key mission is to connect users with the best quality services. For more information: http://www.nhncorp.com/nhnen/index.nhn.

Copyright:
© 2013 NHN Corporation. All rights reserved. NHN, LINE logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NHN Corporation in Korea and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice.

SOURCE NHN Corporation