Fresh from its dual IPO last month, mobile messaging giant Line is finally making it easier for new users to sign up for an account on a device other than a mobile phone.
A subsidiary of South Korea’s biggest web operators, Naver Corp, Line rose to prominence for its WhatsApp-style mobile messaging app that claims more than 200 million users in 200 countries — most of those across a handful of Asian countries — including its native Japan. The company has hitherto restricted new signups to its mobile phone app, though once an account has been created, users could sign in through a desktop computer or tablet.
A minor pain point for Line has been onboarding new users, so the Japan-based tech company’s announcement that new accounts can now be set up on Windows and Mac machines, as well as tablets, could go some way toward easing that friction.
Above: New Line Account
This is particularly pertinent given that the company went public last month with a dual-IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Tokyo Stock Exchange. A little more than a month later, Line’s stock remains roughly flat from its inaugural trading price of $42, and the company is clearly seeking to increase traction internationally, including in the U.S., where it has struggled to gain mindshare.
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The timing of today’s announcement is also notable given yesterday’s news that WhatsApp will be getting a little cozier with parent company Facebook and begin pushing users to share more data with the social network — including phone numbers. While that move alone is unlikely to cause a mass exodus from WhatsApp, the fact that a new messaging app is striving to gain users in a market that’s growing weary of Facebook’s domination could give some people cause to look elsewhere.
Ahead of its IPO last month, Line also announced that it was introducing end-to-end encryption by default for all users.
