Line closes in on WhatsApp, reaches 400 million users

MANILA, Philippines — The world’s fastest growing messaging and social networking app Line reached a major milestone on Tuesday, April 1 crossing the 400 million user mark, 65M users shy of WhatsApp’s 465M users.

Japan-based NHN Corporation says Line’s user base grew by an unprecedented 100M users over the last 4 months, setting a record of about 1.7M new users per day.

While the majority of Line users come from Japan and Southeast Asia, the messaging app has also seen “record-breaking” growth in the Western market. As of February 2014, Line attracted more than 10 million users in the United States alone.

Since the start of 2014 new records were also set in terms of the number of messages sent in a single day (10B), stickers sent in a single day (1.8B) and voice calls made in a single day (12M).

The app generated $338 million in revenue last year despite fierce competition from China’s WeChat, South Korea’s KakaoTalk, and What’s App — Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition.

Launched in June 2011, Line reached the 50-million user mark after only 399 days, faster than social media giants Twitter (1,096 days) and Facebook (1,325 days). The app was initially launched only on Android and iOS but has since expanded to accommodate Blackberry, Nokia Asha, Windows Phone, Firefox OS, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.

Line CEO Akira Morikawa says he expects further growth this year, “One of our goals for 2014 was to reach over 500 million users.”  — Rappler.com