This study analyzed the successful case of Naver LINE’s entry into the Japanese market. LINE pursued a strategy of establishing its dominance early on and implemented localization for Japan and thereby achieved success in the Japanese market. The various strategies adopted by LINE allowed it to win over 80% of the market share in Japan and function as a nationally ubiquitous mobile messenger. The conclusions to be drawn from our LINE analysis is that LINE must implement localization strategies suited to the characteristics of each country, as it had done successfully in Japan. In the Asian region, it should retain the platform that provides various contents while pursuing a localization strategy to secure competitive edge, by offering emoticons suitable for each country, such as Ramadan emoticons in Islamic regions.
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