Line Corporation

Line Corporation
	Line Corporation's headquarters
Native name	Line 株式会社
Formerly	Hangame Japan (2000-2002); NHN Japan (2003-2013);
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Internet and Telecommunications
Predecessor	NHN Japan
Founded	September 4, 2000; 24 years ago, in Tokyo, Japan
Defunct	October 1, 2023
Fate	Merged with Z Holdings and Yahoo! Japan
Successor	LY Corporation
Headquarters	Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Takeshi Idezawa, CEO
Products	Line, livedoor
Services	Line App, Line Manga, Line Play, Line Taxi
Revenue	¥166.4B "$1.5B USD" (2020)
Total assets	¥541.4B "$5B USD"(2020)
Total equity	¥147.7B "$1.4B USD" (2020)
Number of employees	2,268
Parent	Z Holdings (65.3%)
Subsidiaries	Line Plus Corporation ; Line Business Partners Corporation ; DataHotel Co., Ltd. ; Line Digital Frontier ; Line Vietnam ; Line Company Thailand
Website	www.lycorp.co.jp

Line Corporation (Line 株式会社, Rain Kabushiki gaisha) was a Japanese Internet company. It was a subsidiary of Z Holdings, a joint venture between SoftBank Group and Naver Corporation. It was established in 2000 as the Japanese subsidiary of South Korean NHN Corporation's online game community site Hangame, under the name Hangame Japan^[1]. In 2003, it was renamed NHN Japan and in 2013, it was rebranded as Line Corporation.

The company operates various internet services, including the communication app Line, as well as Line Music, and Line Manga, and Line Pay.

In 2019, during the merger with Yahoo, Line Corporation (the original entity) was reorganized into a holding company and established as Line Split Preparation Corporation, and in 2021, it changed its company name to Line Corporation (2nd generation) by taking over the business from the original entity. At this time, the original entity changed its name to A Holdings Corporation.

On February 2, 2023, it was announced that Z Holdings and Yahoo would merge during the fiscal year 2023.^[2] On October 1 of the same year, Yahoo, Z Entertainment, and Z Data merged into Z Holdings and changed their name to "Line Yahoo Corporation."^[3]^[4] Line Corporation transferred its assets, rights, and businesses to Line Yahoo Corporation through absorption-type split except for certain overseas stocks, and changed its name to the current one.^[5] It is expected to become a holding company managing overseas subsidiaries' stocks and other assets through business reorganization.

History

Line Corporation was founded on September 4, 2000, as Hangame Japan as a part of Hangame, a South Korean game company owned by NHN at the time. In August 2003, the company was renamed to NHN Japan.

In 2007 Naver established another Japanese subsidiary Naver Japan, which managed the Naver search engine in Japan before its demise. Naver Japan acquired Livedoor in 2010.

In 2012, Naver merged the three entities (NHN Japan, Naver Japan, Livedoor) into a new subsidiary known as NHN Japan.^[6]

On April 1, 2013, the company changed its name and traded as Line Corporation.^[7] Later that same year, NHN split into two companies, Naver Corporation and NHN Entertainment Corporation and the latter created a new NHN Japan Corporation subsidiary.^[8]

In July 2016, Line Corporation held IPOs on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Tokyo Stock Exchange.^[9]

In late December 2020, Line delisted from both the New York Stock Exchange and the Tokyo Stock Exchange,^[10] in advance of its absorption-type merger agreement with Z Holdings.^[11]

In March 2021 Line Corporation merged with Yahoo Japan, which has been operated by Z Holdings, a SoftBank Group subsidiary.^[12] Under the new structure, Naver Corporation (Line's former parent company) and SoftBank Corp. (the wireless carrier unit of SoftBank Group) each hold 50 percent stakes in a new company named A Holdings Corp., which holds a majority stake in Z Holdings, which will operate Line and Yahoo Japan.^[12]^[13]^[14] Upon integrating the two businesses and creating further platforms, the merged company aims to compete with the U.S. tech giants Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple and the Chinese tech giants Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent,^[13] as well as the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.^[12] The merger also gives Z Holdings three additional Asian markets where Line is popular: Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.^[12]

In April 2021, Line Corporation launched Line Bank, a commercial bank headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan.^[15]^[16]^[17]

In February 2023, Z Holdings announced its intention to merge its subsidiaries, Line and Yahoo Japan.^[18] In April, it was announced that the merger would be implemented on October 1, along with a simultaneous name change to LY Corporation.^[19]