LINE

The corporate background traces to Hangame Japan, established by the NAVERNAVERNAVER is a South Korean internet company founded by Lee Hae-jin in 1999. It expanded from Korean-language search and portal services into advertising, commerce, digital content, fintech, cloud computing and AI. Its group incubated LINE in Japan and participated in the integration that produced LY Corporation.Open the full entry group in 2000, later renamed NHN Japan and expanded through the 2010 acquisition of livedoor. Akira MorikawaAkira MorikawaAkira Morikawa is a Japanese internet executive and founder of C Channel. He led NHN Japan and LINE during the messenger’s launch and early international expansion, while crediting the product’s development to its team.Open the full entry led the company when the app launched; the corporate history predates the product.⁠[1]

Difficulties contacting loved ones after the Great East Japan Earthquake motivated LINE’s development. Jungho Shin and the team created the app, which launched on June 23, 2011, initially with text messaging and later free calls and stickers.⁠[1][2]

LINE added Home and Timeline and grew through local promotion and partners. Its tenth-anniversary retrospective reported more than 300 million registered users worldwide in November 2013; registered users are distinct from monthly active users.⁠[3]

In 2013 NHN Japan adopted the LINE corporate name and the group established LINE Plus for international business. The app brand, operating corporation and international subsidiary were related but distinct entities.⁠[4]

LINE expanded into payments, music, gifts and creator stickers, using official accounts, sponsored stickers and marketing tools to connect businesses and consumers. Availability varied by country and period rather than forming a uniform worldwide feature set.⁠[3]

LINE’s operating company listed on the New York and Tokyo stock exchanges in July 2016 under LN and 3938. The listed security represented the company, not the software application itself.⁠[1]

LINE introduced the Clova AI platform and smart speakers and developed payment, investment and insurance services. In 2019 its Life on LINE vision described expansion from a communications gateway into everyday services.⁠[3]

LINE Corporation delisted from the Tokyo and New York exchanges in December 2020 and completed business integration with Z Holdings in 2021. The messaging service continued; delisting did not mean the app closed.⁠[1][5]

After the 2021 integration, a LINE personal-data management issue raised user concerns. In a later public interview, Takeshi Idezawa acknowledged that the company had failed to prevent it and described the substantial resources required for remediation and rebuilding trust.⁠[2]

Z Holdings, LINE, Yahoo JapanYahoo JapanYahoo Japan refers to the Yahoo! JAPAN portal and its historical operating companies. The Japanese search and information brand became part of LY Corporation’s operations in the 2023 reorganization.Open the full entry, Z Entertainment and Z Data completed reorganization as LY Corporation. LY Corporation operates LINE in Japan, while LINE Plus and other regional companies support overseas business.⁠[5]

In November 2023 LY Corporation disclosed unauthorized system access. It said malware on a subcontractor’s computer enabled access through NAVER Cloud and a shared authentication environment into former LINE systems. A February 2024 update expanded the disclosed impact.⁠[6]

LINE Pay ended in Japan on April 30, 2025 as the group concentrated Japanese payments resources on PayPay. The original announcement excluded Taiwan and Thailand from that termination; it did not end the LINE messenger.⁠[7][8]

LY Corporation’s history states that LINE exceeded 100 million monthly users in Japan in December 2025. This dated, market-specific measure differs from global registrations or app-store review counts.⁠[9]

LINE had introduced AI question answering, image generation and reply suggestions. The corporate history records their integration into Agent i in April 2026.⁠[9]

LY Corporation disclosed unnecessary transmission of internal identifiers from three LINE GAME titles to an external advertising tool, affecting about 6.1 million unique users. These were different from friend-search LINE IDs. The company said transmission had stopped and the provider had deleted the data.⁠[10]

Following administrative guidance received on July 31, the company submitted a report covering information classification, contractual and technical controls, training, and checks that actual external transmissions matched privacy disclosures across its products.⁠[11]

LINE supports messaging and voice and video communication. Letter Sealing provides end-to-end encryption for eligible chats, but group calls, meetings, albums and notes are outside that scope. End-to-end encryption should not be assumed for every LINE feature.⁠[12]

LINE names both a messenger and a wider family of business, content, commerce and financial services. LY Corporation operates in Japan, with LINE Plus, LINE Taiwan and LINE Thailand supporting regional development. Operators and availability differ by product.⁠[13]

Website: https://line.me/en/ (opens in a new window); global X: https://twitter.com/line_global (opens in a new window); global YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: https://www.youtube.com/user/lineappglobal (opens in a new window); global Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/line.worldwide (opens in a new window). Related entries cover Jungho Shin, Akira Morikawa, Lee Hae-jinLee Hae-jinLee Hae-jin is the founder and board chairman of NAVER, associated with Korean-language search, LINE’s international expansion and global investment. His career includes Samsung SDS and leadership of NAVER and NHN. He shifted to global investment in 2017 and returned as NAVER board chairman in 2025.Open the full entry, NAVER, LINE Plus and LY Corporation.⁠[14]