Katrina Kaif to endorse LINE!

LINE Corporation, owner and operator of LINE, a free call and messaging app, announced that the number of users in India has reached an impressive 10 million. LINE is aiming to become the No. 1 smartphone communication app in India, and is shoring up its plans for further marketing development.

Anticipating the continuing growth of the smartphone market in India, popular Bollywood Actress Katrina Kaif has been brought in as a brand ambassador, and a TV commercial campaign will be launched on October 11, coinciding with the Diwali festival. In a global first for the company, LINE will be releasing free India-exclusive stickers featuring photographs of Katrina Kaif.

The free call and messaging app, LINE, has been registered over 10 million times in India alone and the numbers were achieved after only 3 months from the official release, making it the fastest growing region globally.

‘India has overtaken Japan to become the country with the third largest number of smartphone users. ** It is only natural to anticipate further growth of the smartphone market in India, and we believe that it will become a vital territory as LINE expands into the global marketplace’, said Akira Morikawa, C.E.O. of LINE Corporation. 

Talking about the association with Katrina Kaif, Morikawa said, ‘With the help of our marketing partnership with Katrina Kaif, along with other partnerships with entities in India, we are confident that we can easily surpass 20 million users by the end of the year.’

‘This Diwali is going to be special because LINE has added a host of exciting offerings for us. I now have an account especially created to interact with my fans. The stickers are adorable and I can’t wait to get my hands on the new Katrina sticker’ said Katrina Kaif who has been roped in as LINE’s India brand ambassador. ‘The new TV commercial is all about connecting with all your loved ones this festive season. It was fun shooting this commercial and the sets were buzzing with LINE messages day-in day-out. My experience while using LINE has been incredible and it has completely changed the way I connect with my friends’ she added.

In addition to its partnership with Katrina, LINE has also partnered with: Sony India, who will pre-install LINE on their flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z1 and Xperia C, as well as launch a cooperative marketing campaign

Sony Music Entertainment is opening official accounts with LINE which will cater to fans of major genres of music including Bollywood, Indipop, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi and International music

In order to connect with a large audience and provide localized content LINE is also partnering with major Bollywood films, such as ‘Krrish 3’ and ‘DHOOM:3’, giving exclusive content to customers
The big-ticket strategic partnerships are aimed to architecture a well-entrenched consumer outreach strategy and mark a prominent existence in the burgeoning instant messaging space.

LINE has always differentiated itself from existing applications by making use of highly innovative and bespoke services. With the recent roll-out of free video calls and video sharing capabilities, LINE is set to bring high-quality communication to Indian users. From the day of official launch in the market, voice calls have witnessed 3,200 % growth and 1,800% usage increase has been attributed to stickers. Additionally, messages have touched an exciting 700% increase since June 2013.

LINE is continually striving to bring improved services to its customers, and along with strengthening its ties in India, hopes to become the country’s No. 1 communication app provider