The number of people using mobile messaging service Line has reached 400 million worldwide, including more than 17 million in Taiwan alone, Line Corp said yesterday.
Line added another 100 million registered users in just 126 days — one day less than it needed to go from 200 million to 300 million users — the company said in a statement.
It has added up to 1.7 million new users a day since hitting the 300-million-user milestone on Nov. 25, the Tokyo-based company said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
However, the number of registered users in Taiwan has remained relatively flat since November last year.
Asked if Taiwan’s market is saturated, Line Taiwan said that the number of users has actually continued to grow as the number of mobile devices rises.
“Line will also keep an eye on Taiwan’s market and continue to provide diverse services to meet users’ needs,” the company said.
In addition to Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, India, Indonesia and Spain, the countries that have more than 1 million registered users now include the US, South Korea, Malaysia and Mexico, the company said.
The number of text messages sent via Line per day has reached as many as 10 billion, while more than 12 million free calls using the system are made a day, it said.
Line chief executive officer Akira Morikawa expressed delight at hitting the 400-million-user milestone, and said the company expected to reach 500 million users within this year.
“Line aims to further its growth and become the world’s top communications infrastructure, taking on many new challenges along the way,” he said, adding that the level of competition in the global communications app market has become fiercer than ever.
Launched in June 2011, Line, which allows users to enjoy free calls and messages as well as video calls, needed just 399 days to reach the 50-million-user mark, compared with 1,096 days for Twitter and 1,325 days for Facebook.
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