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[홍키자의 아이티라떼-3] Japanese national messenger’LINE’ was delisted on the Japanese and US stock markets on December 29, 2020.
‘Line’ disappears on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan after 4 years and 4 months after listing in July 2016.
LINE is a subsidiary of Naver. Naver’s stake in Line amounts to 72.64%.
Before Naver used its predecessor, NHN, its name was’Navercom’. Navercom was a company founded in June 1999 when the CEO Lee Hae-jin (now Naver Global Investment Manager (GIO)) started as an in-house venture of Samsung SDS. Hangame Communications CEO Kim Bum-soo announced the merger with Navercom in July 2000 after establishing the company in November 1998. The company changed its name to NHN in 2001.
As soon as the company was merged at the time, Hangame CEO Kim Bum-soo declared Hangame’s advance into Japan.
I ran into opposition from all employees. No, the portal Naver ranking is still only 5th, and Hangame is being pursued by Netmarble and Pmang, which was the reason why they went to Japan. But CEO Kim Beom-soo thought so.
“In the digital age, if it is not 1, it is 0. Internet business is meaningless unless it is number one.”
The reason was that before the PC game culture settled in the Japanese market, the game had to be played. So at the same time as the merger, Hangame Japan Co., Ltd. was established in Japan. The company changed its name to NHN JAPAN Co., Ltd. and became the current line.
In Japan, national messengers are not’KakaoTalk’ like Korea. As everyone knows, all the people communicate through LINE Messenger.
The monthly unique users (MAU) is 86 million. As of this year, the population of Japan is 120 million, so it can be said that all except for infants and seniors are used.
When it expands beyond Japan and into all of Southeast Asia, the number of people who use Line every month will reach 165 million. It’s easy to understand that most of the Asian regions are using lines.
But why are these No. 1 messenger companies delisted?
This is because of the merger with Yahoo Japan, a Japanese portal that was finally approved this year.
‘Line + Yahoo Japan’ as an Asian mega platform… Challenge Google and Facebook(Go to article)
Line announced the merger with Z Holdings, a subsidiary of Softbank that operates Yahoo Japan. In August, we also received final approval from the Japan Fair Trade Commission. Yahoo Japan is the No. 1 portal company in Japan and is literally the’national portal’. It has been monopolizing the No. 1 market share of Japanese portal sites for 20 years.
Japan’s No. 1 messenger company and No. 1 portal company merge, and a company called’A Holdings’ emerges. Dinosaur information technology (IT) companies will be born across Asia.
In Korea, it’s like Naver and Kakao suddenly say, “Now, we’ll be merging. We can reduce bleeding competition and expand it by merging with similar fields.”
So what’s the benefit?
That’s a lot of data. The quality data that a company with over 100 million unique users can rake in will be tremendous.
Data is everything, not just data. IT enterprise success equation #1 is securing quality data. It is possible to collect the data of all citizens from the portal from Yahoo Japan that Line does not have. All kinds of data such as search history, purchase history, frequency of staying on the site, etc. Through this, customized’targeting advertisements’ for each customer,’asset management’ and’product recommendation’ can be developed. Artificial intelligence (AI) will also have a background to advance. Sales are a bonus.
In order to sell products, a single market based on a large population must be formed, but Japan, which is a single citizen base of 100 million people, is an excellent market after the United States and China.
Moreover, the synergy effect will not be great as the two companies, such as Naver’s’LINE Pay’ and Softbank’s’PayPay’, combine services that were competing in the market.
In Japan, like Korea, financial IT is not yet ripe. Pay market is still narrow. This is because the whole country is less digitized. There is still a culture of stamping, and it is a form of creating a robot that automatically stamps the stamp rather than digitalizing the stamping method. This is because electronic documents are not universal.
If the joint venture penetrates the financial world with Pay alone, a big storm will rage across the financial world, including the traditional Japanese banking and card industry.
It’s not just Japan. It is enough to penetrate finance into Southeast Asia.
Why it’s important to dig into finance was once treated as the importance of easy payment.
Those who have the easy payment market, win the world(Go to article)
What does it mean to establish a joint venture by LINE?
One of Naver’s overseas pipelines will be strengthened. One of the biggest pillars of Naver’s overseas business is the LINE joint venture, and the other is Naver Webtoon.
One of the Japanese-language profit models, which clearly generates profits, is strengthened. Of course, it takes time for the two companies to merge and achieve a perfect harmonious combination.
There are many corners to be earned in all parts of Asia. The possibility of expanding beyond Asia to other continents increases.
For example, if you mainly use Line Messenger in a Southeast Asian country where there are many Naver webtoon users, you can pay by using the joint venture’s Pay.
Through payment, you can secure the purchase history of the people of that country. If webtoons sell well, it will be possible to speculate that movies and dramas based on webtoons will sell well.
What is it after all? It’s good for Naver.
Naver’s stock price hit 347,000 won this year and is now in the second half of the 200,000 won range. If the subsidiary’s earnings increase, the parent company’s stock price is likely to gain momentum.
It is interesting to note how the LINE joint venture will appear in the market.
Maeil Economy Mobile Department’s’IT Latte’ Facebook page (Go to Facebook).
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