One of my friend, who lived in Japan, added me "LINE," the smart phone app made by NAVER JAPAN. This app is really hot these days, especially in Middle East, in South East Asia, and in Japan.
After just register your phone number, you can chat or talk over LINE on the 3G network (I guess they use VoIP technology like Skype). However, this service is extremely heavy for the mobile network, so each mobile carrier companies in Japan have to deal with it by increasing the number of network servers and the broadband networks themselves. Actually, Docomo, the biggest mobile carrier in Japan, faced a network accident, which is like a connection disorder, for a while last month. At that time, many customers were not connecting the network that Docomo provided. It meant LINE had literally many customer as active uses.
To digress, a interesting thing is that NAVER JAPAN, which is a subsidiary of Korean company "NAVER," provided English version of LINE and it became popular among people in Middle East. Even though "Sticker" that is a sort of cartoon image icon of LINE is typical Japanese design, this trend implies many people like it and use over the world.
Some IT analysts wonder "How do they get profits?" I guess they haven't havd profit yet, nay, their business model has been only "free" without advertisement so far. Because LINE has been downloaded by 15 million people, they can start new business targeted for those users. I think they wish they could start profitable business with LINE before mobile carriers regulation.
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