What is Line? Messaging App IPO Sets the Largest Tech Opening in 2016; The Impact of Mobile Messaging Apps to Consumers
The Tokyo-based chat app, Line, achieved the biggest IPO of this year's U.S stock market. On Friday, the app's share price had jumped up to 50% in the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Some users have embraced the birth of messaging apps not only because they offer free calls and text messages, but also because they feature a unique way of expressing messages. Aside from that, online messaging apps also enable users to communicate with people around the world, free of charge.
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How Mobile Messaging Apps Dominate and Influence
The growing number of people using chat applications in their day-to-day communication proved how chat apps are slowly dominating the world of digital communication. Many users have abandoned the use of traditional text messaging, and switched to the livelier and more creative version of messaging in social media.
Such huge impact has been noticeable during the previous years. WhatsApp rank first in most widely-used messaging application and also has the highest engagement rates. Facebook Messenger ranks the second and QQ Mobile ranks third. These applications have earned millions of users every month as recorded in a 2016 statistics.
The enormous population of online users had made these chat apps become capable of taking part in the business industry. Chat apps have become the main communication tool of clients and employees. Chat apps also became a tool for online business holders in making transactions with their customers.
The Rise of Demands on LINE
Like other top-listing messaging apps, LINE has also dominated the digital world. In 2015, a new store called Line Friends opened in Tokyo. And from the name itself, it is owned by the social media based company. LINE has become Japan's hottest phenomenon, and shoppers have been instantly fascinated by everything that was sold in the shop. The shop had different collections of Bear and Cony, the two characters features in Line chat app.
Since the app was launched in 2001, more than 560 million have been subscribing to it. Despite its offers of free calls and messages, LINE has earned revenue through selling of digital stickers, online app games, merchandises, and even teamed up with celebrities in Asia for commercial and advertisement purposes.
While others believed that Line isn't really much different from any messaging apps like Messenger or WhatsApp. They got that wrong, however. LINE has expanded from simple sticker-sending and messaging app to a radical app with games. The company is also planning to build its own music streaming and taxi hailing soon.
