Actually LINE is Korean, owned by Naver. Big in Thailand and some other Asian countries. The Asian chat apps are Wechat (owned by Tencent), Alichat (owned by A

Actually LINE is Korean, owned by Naver. Big in Thailand and some other Asian countries. The Asian chat apps are Wechat (owned by Tencent), Alichat (owned by Alibaba) and LINE (owned by Naver via a Japanese sub). They are all competing now to capture the market share, We/Ali are competing hard in China and for many Chinese users, Wechat is the internet. It has embedded apps and a payment network. Alibaba are coming from behind. WePay/AliPay/LINE Pay are their correlating payment networks. Whatsapp is not big at all in Asia, it also doesn't have the various support things that people want, like a) stickers and sticker markets (big money on sticker sales), b) "cute" characters and associated toys/cards/etc, c) a payment system that lets kids easily buy virtual stuff like stickers and then extends to support retail/transit etc. That "stupid stuff" is actually worth a fortune. Disclosure: Working with LINE on transit related applications.