Online communities are flooded with posts opposing the potential sale of Line, with comments like “Japan is seizing Line,” “led by a descendant of Hirobumi Ito,” the first resident-general of the Korean colonial government, and “Our future asset is being taken away.” (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, May 13 (Korea Bizwire) – The attention of South Koreans has intensified around the “Line crisis” triggered by demands from the Japanese government, including a review of Naver’s stake in the messaging app Line. This has led to a 15-fold surge in online searches for “Line” over the past four days.
According to Naver Data Lab’s search trend data on May 12, the search index for “Line” on May 9 stood at 47.1, a 15.1-fold jump from 3.12 on May 5. The search index reflects the relative change in search frequency for a term, with the highest volume over a two-year period set at 100.
The May 9 search index was the highest level in nearly one year and seven months since the KakaoTalk service outage on Oct. 16, 2022, which recorded an index of 100. Compared to Feb. 10, when the index was 1.18, searches have increased by close to 4000%.
The searches for Line on May 9 were more than double those for the rival messaging app KakaoTalk, reflecting heightened public interest in Line amid the Japanese government’s demands for management improvements at Line’s parent company.
Naver and the Japanese investment company SoftBank each own 50 percent of the shares in Line’s parent, A Holdings. However, discussions are underway to reduce Naver’s stake following administrative guidance from Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in March.
Online communities are flooded with posts opposing the potential sale of Line, with comments like “Japan is seizing Line,” “led by a descendant of Hirobumi Ito,” the first resident-general of the Korean colonial government, and “Our future asset is being taken away.”
The surge in interest is also reflected in increased app installations and user numbers for Line. According to mobile analytics firm IGA Works, new installations of the Line app in the fifth week of April (April 29-May 5) reached 58,346, a 3.5 percent increase from the previous week’s 56,373 installations. This was the highest level since the first week of August 2022 when installations hit 59,728.
Compared to the first week of February when there were 47,329 new installations, the number has surged 23.3 percent in just three months.
With more new installations, Line’s user base is also growing. In the fifth week of April, Line’s weekly active users (WAU) reached 1,166,382, up 2.5 percent from the previous week’s 1,137,674, marking the highest level since the fifth week of January (January 29-February 4) when it recorded 1,201,174 WAUs.
The figures were 10.6 percent higher than the fourth week of February (February 26-March 3) when there were 1,055,058 WAUs.
Some observers suggest that mobile users in South Korea may be trying to protect Line amid concerns that Naver, which has nurtured Line into a global messaging service over 13 years, could lose management control to Japan.
The increased interest in Line is also seen as reflecting a sense of crisis as Chinese app Temu has been the top newly installed app for seven consecutive months, and the U.S. video platform YouTube has been the most-used app for five months straight, solidifying the dominance of foreign apps in South Korea.
An IT industry official commented, “Line is almost the only successful global platform launched by a South Korean IT company,” adding, “As the domestic market remains defenseless against the onslaught of U.S. and Chinese apps, there are concerns over the potential loss of Line.”
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
