Line Thailand is gearing up for consumer business restructuring by reaching out to more video calling services, such as telehealth, while driving creators' businesses by tapping into non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for growth.
"We are restructuring our consumer business by switching from product-centric offerings to solution services to expand to new opportunities," said Norasit Sitivechvichit, newly appointed chief operating officer of Line Thailand.
There are two new core consumer businesses being pursued by Line, he said.
The first concerns Voice over Internet Protocol through Line Melody, which offers ringtones and ring-back tones as well as fortune teller services, dubbed Line DooDuang.
"Thailand is among the top countries for use of Line Call and Line Video Call," Mr Norasit said.
There were 22 million active users of Line Video Call in 2021, up 30% from 17 million a year before, while Line Call saw 34 million users in 2021, a jump of 20% from 28 million a year earlier.
Line Melody services saw a surge of 600% year-on-year in monthly active users to 2.2 million in 2021. He said Line DooDuang has an average of 3 million users a day.
Mr Norasit said Line will soon launch a service that enables consumers to book a consultation with fortune tellers directly through the use of video calls or call services.
"Video calls can also be developed to cater to many services, such as telehealth and online learning," he said.
Line is sharpening its focus on Line Creators Business, which concerns the creation of stickers, themes, emojis, merchandise and intellectual property (IP).
As of February, the number of registered creators surpassed a million, while Line has some 5.3 million sticker sets available in the Thai market, said Mr Norasit.
Line aims to launch Line Valley for IP merchandising. It has more than 28 Thai creators who have been transformed into IP business players via a business partnership, which helps create value for brands, such as Uniqlo and AIS, he said.
Creators can now expand to new opportunities in parallel with emerging digital tech, such as digital commercial arts and digital assets, mainly NFTs, said Mr Norasit.
The first step is to open Line Creators Academy to educate artists to connect with NFT exchanges, he said. Line Creators NFT for Business will be formed to forge cooperation with brands to launch digital assets to connect with their customers, said Mr Norasit.