Messaging and calling apps are a very big deal right now. The biggest headlines of the year when it comes to these apps include Facebook buying WhatsApp and Rakuten buying Viber, but there were also plenty of investments in between there that showed the space has plenty more room to grow and expand.
LINE sill hold an event about its business strategy on October 9
Despite how it’s grown and rumors to the contrary, SoftBank Corp. COO Ken Miyauchi told Reuters recently that the company has no plans to invest in Naver’s LINE application, which currently ranks as one of Asia’s star children in the messaging space alongside WeChat and KakaoTalk.
LINE plans to hold a media event about its business strategy on October 9, which put a lot of the expectations squarely on a large investment from either Softbank or Alibaba, which invested $280 million in Tango earlier this year and was also the subject of rumored Snapchat investments.
Naver Corp “was not considering a stake sale to [Alibaba or Softbank]”
A source with “direct knowledge of the situation” told Reuters back in July that Naver Corp “was not considering a stake sale to either of the two” and LINE is still pursing an IPO, which a banking source has told Reuters could value the company at $10 billion to $20 billion, though no details have been given about the listing.
LINE is currently available for most major platforms.