Facebook rival LINE mobile messenger invades Phl

MANILA, Philippines -- Japan's LINE mobile messenger that goes head-to-head with Facebook has invaded the Philippines Thursday aiming to rule the social networking world of Filipinos.

The LINE smartphone application, created by South Korea's NHN Corporation unit in Japan offers free messaging, calling and group chatting, while integrating various social network service (SNS) elements in its features.

Among LINE's features are Stickers and Home & Timeline and LINE’s multiple family apps including LINE Game and LINE Camera.

Hyun-bin Kang, Director of LINE Business Office, NHN Corp., said LINE is eyeing the Philippine market, describing it to be filled with a multitude of opportunities, being the country dubbed as the "texting capital of the world."

Kang said LINE plans to collaborate with various Philippine companies and carry out local marketing activities to benefit users.

"In order to enhance the presence of LINE and its family apps in the Philippines, LINE has plans to actively carry out marketing campaigns like partnering with local artists, animation and entertainment companies to release various localized contents such as stickers and Official Accounts, solely for users in the Philippines," Kang said. "Also, LINE intends to outsource fun games through cooperation with game developers in the Philippines."

Jin-woo Lee, Senior Manager, LINE Business Office, NHN Corp., said LINE was only released in June 2011 but has already surpassed the 110 million users in 231 countries.

NHN is an Internet company in South Korea that operates the nation's popular search portal Naver, the online game portal Hangame, the children's portal Jr. Naver, and Korea's first online donation portal Happybean and microblog service Me2DAY.

Lee cited a big potential in the Philippines with its ongoing high smartphone penetration rate.

By downloading the LINE app, it allows the usage of its many features anywhere with any device not limited to smartphones but also on various multi-devices such as PCs and tablets. It is a cross platform communication service that supports various OS such as iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows.

"Users can communicate through various methods such as free messages, local and international calls, and even by playing games together," Lee said. "LINE’s fun stickers will also enable the users in the Philippines, who are known to freely express their feelings, to accurately illustrate and visualize their emotions."

Lee explained there are four representative LINE characters, namely: Brown, Cony, Moon and James. Each have distinctive personalities that made them popular from users worldwide, who are fanatic about the wide array of dramatic facial expressions portrayed by the original characters.

He added there are more than 200 types of stickers in which users can utilize while chatting to share realistic and vivid emotional expressions to invigorate conversations.