Months removed from the year's largest IPO for a tech company, but now facing slowing subscriber growth, Japanese messaging service Line Corp. is looking to two top executives to expand its user base and come up with fresh ideas.
Bloomberg reports that Line CEO Takeshi Idezawa has tapped strategy chief Jun Masuda and co-founder/Chief Global Officer Joongho Shin to build upon the 20 percent share gain the company has enjoyed since going public in July.
Line's user base of 220 million is not growing as expected and revenue from its stable of games and digital stickers is also slowing, according to the report. Line's core product is a free messaging service and app, though the Tokyo-based company has expanded to other areas including music streaming.
Line Music, which is currently available in Japan and Thailand, boasts 30 million songs and has the benefit of being heavily integrated with the flagship Line app. Spotify launched in the country in late September, joining Apple Music and Google Play. The country's physical market dwarfs its (rising) digital recording business, each respectively generating $1.9 billion and $255 million in the first half of this year.