We’ve been covering the rapid rise of messaging apps like Line and Kakao in recent months, and wondering what their potential is for music. Now we may be about to find out. Japanese firm Line held a press conference yesterday to announced its latest figures: 230m registered users, including 47m in Japan, 18m in Thailand, 17m in Taiwan and 15m in Spain according to industry blog Startup Dating. Line’s app is signing up 63k new users every hour, with 80% of its users outside Japan, and 7bn messages having been sent so far. Oh, and Line is currently generating more than $10m a month from sales of virtual stickers through its app. And music? At the event, Line’s chief strategy and marketing officer Jun Masuda told journalists about a new feature called Line Music for people to “listen and share with friends”. It’s due to launch this Autumn as part of Line’s main messaging app, although exact details (including any label deals) haven’t been announced yet beyond the fact that Line Music won’t be a Japan-only thing.
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