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October 22, 2013

Japan's Line May File for IPO by End of Year

By Ed Silverstein, TMCnet Contributor

There is almost a total fixation among many tech investors on Twitter’s (News - Alert) upcoming IPO, but sector watchers should not forget about another possible forthcoming IPO: Line. It is a Japanese-based text messaging service.



Line could file for an IPO by the end of the year, according to recent news reports. Line could be traded either on the Nasdaq or Tokyo Stock Exchange, news reports add.

On the other hand, Twitter is expected to have an IPO next month. Twitter is valued at about $16 billion. But Line is valued at about $28 billion. Line also has grown to some 230 million registered users over just two years. It may see 300 million registered users by the end of this year. In addition, Line saw $132 million in revenue during Q2 2013.

In comparison, Whatsapp has 300 million users, and Twitter has some 218.3 million users, according to data reported by Quartz.

Already, Line has 47 million users in Japan. Line wants to see more growth there, as well as in the United States and Korea. Yet, Line has just 1 percent of smartphone users in the United States, now. Latin America, other regions in Asia, and Europe are among its other target markets, The Next Web reported.

When it comes to monthly active users of its timeline features, Line comes in at 73 million.

Why does Line stand to be a major rival in the sector? In a recent report, Wamda explained that “It offers a bouquet of today's most popular social networking features: an activity timeline (like Facebook (News - Alert) or Twitter), an instant messaging tool that allows both video and audio (like Viber, Whatsapp, and BBM), group chats (like Palringo), and a freemium voice over IP VOIP product like Skype (News - Alert). If its quality is decent, it could eat market share from all of the above.”

In a recent report there was also speculation that Line could rival Whatsapp in parts of the Middle East. Smartphone penetration is about 60 percent in the United Arab Emirates and about 62 percent in Saudi Arabia. These are relatively high numbers. Also, Line is the eighth most popular social networking app in the UAE, 10th in Saudi Arabia, and sixth in Lebanon.

Looking ahead, perhaps investors should be standing in line for Line.




Edited by Ryan Sartor
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