Dubai: The free internet calling and messaging apps have become hugely popular among smartphone users and it has proven to be a lucrative and profitable business.
Recently, Nimbuzz was acquired by the UK-based New Call Telecom in bid to focus on the Middle East region, especially in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, where the smartphone usage is very high compared to other parts of the world.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE now have the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the world, reaching more than 200 per cent.
Similarly, Line Plus Corporation, owner and operator of the free call and messaging app — Line, is entering the market in a big way as the app is gaining traction outside the Asia-Pacific region, where it is very popular in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, India and Malaysia.
“Line is more than a messaging app; it is more of a lifestyle platform integrated with various interactive elements such as stickers, music, games, e-commerce, communications, timeline, call taxi and official accounts for global marketing,” Elina Eun, senior business development manager at Line Plus Corp, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview.
Line has 560 million registered users while only 170 million are monthly active users from 230 countries.
WhatsApp is by far the biggest in the messaging space with more than 600 million monthly active users. Line and China’s WeChat and Korea’s Kakao Talk are business models that are generating significant revenues.
Line was the top-grossing app worldwide for iOS and GooglePlay combined in October, according to AppAnnie
Japan is the biggest market for Line with 52 million users. Already Line has more than 11 million users in Saudi Arabia.
Eun said that Line is the fastest growing social platform by registering 100 million users in just 19 months. It took Twitter to have the same number of users in 49 months and Facebook with 54 months.
To gain market presence in the region, the company held a sticker competition across 11 Arabic speaking countries to get involvement from local users.
The sticker shop helped propel LINE to the No 1 top-grossing App spot in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand.
With so many messaging apps like WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, WeChat, etc, differentiation is what is keeping Line in its quest to stand out from the crowd.
The company makes most of its revenue from in-app purchases within its connected games platform but it also sells stickers and the official accounts which let brands run and pay to reach consumers.
“The Line Sticker Shop offers fun stickers featuring over 20,000 sets with distinctive personalities, some are priced at $2,” Eun said.
It has sold over $30 million in stickers from independent creators during the first six months of business.
As of September, more than 250,000 creators from 139 different countries have registered stickers in excess of 23,000 sets.
The company reported a 104.2 per cent year-on-year growth to 20.9 billion yen in the third quarter.
More than 60 per cent of the revenue comes from family apps and games section with 440 million games downloads globally.
She said that all the features of the app are not available across all the markets. It depends on market to market.
In this region, games, stickers, call taxi and official accounts can become popular, especially in the UAE as it’s a hub for the Middle East.
“Official accounts offer users a chance to befriend and follow their favourite celebrities, public figures and corporate brands and by receiving messages, pictures or even video and audio clips. We plan to add more local celebrities and brands in each country as we expand our footprint in each market,” she said.
