Line into 2013-year top-earning non-gaming apps

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According to foreign media reports, Japan's popular communications application line announced today, in the fourth quarter of 2014, it achieved revenue of 12.2 billion yen (about 120 million U.S. dollars), the chain growth of 20%, the year-on-year Rise of 450%, the annual revenue rose to 34.3 billion yen (about 339 million U.S. dollars). The application is thus the last year's most-paid game-smart smartphone app.

Line's revenue performance shows the potential of chat applications as a platform. The line's performance figures are impressive given that Twitter, which has a larger volume and 241 million-month active users, has a fourth-quarter revenue of $242.7 million.

The application is owned by Korean company Naver Corp. 's line company. A source is valuing line at $10 billion trillion.

Line company also operates internet portals Livedoor and several other businesses. It said its total revenue grew 16% to 15.9 billion yen in the fourth quarter of last year, while its full-year revenue amounted to 51.8 billion yen.

Line application currently has 340 million users, and its goal this year is to increase the number to 500 million.

Among them, the growth of users in India, Mexico, Venezuela and other South American countries was particularly significant. Line last January breakthrough 100 million users, November breakthrough 300 million mark. Akira Morikawa, a line company CEO, pointed out that 2013 was a year of "unprecedented growth" in line user volume.

Line team attributed this to the expressive sticker function. But the expression sticker seems to be just the first step into each market. Line said its revenue growth in its communications applications was mainly due to game purchases, with 60% of its revenues coming from games in the fourth quarter, 20% from emoticons and others from sponsors and public accounts.

According to App Annie of the marketing research company, line is the highest-earning non-gaming app in the 2013 Apple App Store and Google Play, with a total download ranking sixth.

Line does not disclose active user data, so it is difficult to compare it directly with competitive product WhatsApp (350 million-month active users) and micro-letters (with 280 million-month active users). In addition, line did not disclose the profit and loss situation, in order to achieve expansion it may also make a huge investment.

Translator: Lebang