LINE Corporation develops and provides platform for mobile messaging and communication services, content distribution, and advertising in Japan and internationally. The company offers LINE, a cross-platform messenger application that enables users to communicate through free instant messaging, and voice and video calls, as well as serves as a smart portal to its other applications and services. It also provides communication and content sales and advertising services through the LINE platform; and advertising services are through LINE advertising, livedoor blog, and NAVER Matome Web portals. The company was formerly known as NHN Japan Corporation and changed its name to LINE Corporation in April 2013. The company was incorporated in 2000 and is based in Tokyo, Japan. LINE Corporation operates as a subsidiary of Naver Corporation.
5 Facts About the LINE Corp (LN) IPO as It Lights Up Wall Street (UPDATED 10:10AM) The highly-anticipated IPO for LINE Corp (NYSE: LN) hit the New York Stock Exchange today. Shares of the Japan-based mobile messaging and communication service opened for trading at $42 after pricing 35,000,000 shares of its common stock, consisting of 22,000,000 shares of common stock in the form of shares or American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") offered in the United States and elsewhere outside Japan at a price to the public of ¥3,300 per share or $32.84 per ADS and 13,000,000 shares of common stock offered in Japan at a price to the public of ¥3,300 per share. This was above the expected range of $28.50 and $32.50, ¥2,900 and ¥3,300. Below are 5 notable items about the company and IPO: Since the introduction of its mobile messaging application in Japan in June 2011, LINE has grown into a global platform with users in more than 230 countries and a strong user base in Asia. The company's active user base has grown to 218 million monthly active users (“MAUs”) globally in March 2016, with 152 million MAUs located in their four largest markets of Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Nomura Securities Co., Ltd., Goldman Sachs Japan Co., Ltd. andJPMorgan Securities Japan Co., Ltd. are acting as the joint global coordinators for the global offering. The company's revenues are primarily generated from games, Stickers and advertising services on the LINE platform, as well as from advertising on our web portal. The company generated revenues of ¥39,586 million in 2013, ¥86,366 million in 2014, ¥120,406 million in 2015 and ¥33,456 million in the first three months of 2016. For the two years ended March 31, 2016, according to App Annie, LINE ranked as the world's largest mobile publisher based on non-game gross revenue from iOS App Store and Google Play, combined. The company has incurred significant operating losses in the past, and its ability to achieve profitability is uncertain. recorded loss for the year of ¥6,391 million in 2013. The company recorded profit for the year of ¥2,004 million in 2014 but recorded loss for the year of ¥7,972 million in 2015 and loss for the period of ¥234 million in the first three months of 2016, and had an accumulated deficit of ¥19,301 million as of March 31, 2016. Although revenues have grown rapidly, revenue growth rate has slowed recently and may do so in the future due to a variety of factors. BONUS FACT: It already received a Buy rating. Jefferies initiated on Line with a Buy rating and ¥4,200 price target, saying it has a near-monopoly. Read more: www.streetinsider.com/Hot+IPOs/5+Facts+About+the+LINE+Corp+(LN)+IPO+Before+It+Lights+Up+Wall+Street/11830013.html
Understanding Line, the chat app behind 2016’s largest tech IPO Line, the mobile messaging app from Japan, is going public today in a dual Japan-U.S. IPO that could raise as much as $1.14 billion. The listing, which will happen in New York on Thursday and Tokyo on Friday, is set to be the largest from a tech company this year to date. Yet, despite that, precious little is known about the company outside of Asia, where the vast majority of its users are located, and the challenges that it is up against. Here’s what you need to know. First off, on a basic level: Line is a free messaging app that goes beyond basic services like WhatsApp to offer stickers, social games, video calling, and a range of other accompanying apps that connect to the service. It is wholly owned by Naver, a Korean internet company that started the service following the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Naver picked Japan because it realized it couldn’t compete with Kakao, Korea’s dominant chat app. Line has close to 2,500 staff, around 1,000 of whom are located in Japan. Line reported that it has 218 million monthly active users worldwide, around two-thirds of whom are based in its top four countries: Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia. Despite an effort to grow its userbase in Europe and the U.S. through sizable advertising in 2013 and 2014, Line last year refocused its efforts on Asia and new growth opportunities in the region. Line currently has more than 35 apps available to download, including its core messaging app, to a light version for emerging markets, social games, a music streaming service in Japan and Thailand, an Uber rival in Japan and Webtoons, its cartoon app. It also offers a payments service that sits inside the Line messaging app in its largest markets. Line doesn’t have the vast userbase of WhatsApp (more than one billion active users), Facebook Messenger (over 900 million active users) or China’s WeChat (close to 700 million active users), but it is notable for pioneering a number of trends in messaging, particularly around monetization. Strengths Line grossed more than $1 billion in sales for the first time in 2015, more 40 percent of which came from in-app purchases within its social games. Line games have racked up a cumulative 628 million downloads, with 16 of those titles reaching at least 10 million downloads each. Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/14/understanding-line-the-chat-app-behind-2016s-largest-tech-ipo/
