After more than two years, LINE CONVERGE returned in its original, offline format! LINE Taiwan’s signature press event was held on October 4, once again presenting the latest updates regarding content, entertainment, financial technology, OMO, communications, and e-commerce. LINE also took the opportunity to unveil several new services, while Roger Chen, CEO of LINE Taiwan, talked about LINE's long-term plans for talent development, digital governance, and social resilience.
The focus this year was on LINE’s innovations, diversifying our services and creating a more accessible digital lifestyle for our users in Taiwan. Let’s take a deeper look at LINE CONVERGE, beginning with LINE Taiwan’s major plans:
■ Talent development — Training a new generation of digital talent in Taiwan
LINE continues to recruit talented professional in such fields as e-commerce, data application, and Web3, and offers diverse learning channels to help employees improve their professional capacity. To this end, in October, LINE launched the LINE Changer Program, in which employees are able to request for temporary transfer to another department where they can learn skills and knowledge from different fields and receive inspiration and new ideas. In addition, LINE continues to offer internship programs (LINE TECH FRESH) and campus competitions (LINE FRESH) to help ensure a new generation of digital talent is constantly being developed.
■ Digital governance — Fighting against cybercrime
Given the rise in crimes and problematic behavior associated with social networking, LINE puts a high priority on digital governance. LINE commits significant resources toward creating a collaborative platform with business partners and addressing important issues like cybersecurity for children, fighting against false information, and preventing cyber fraud.
■ Social resilience — Supporting digital transformation for NGOs, schools, and SMEs
Being Taiwan’s leading social app, LINE is committed to helping society’s needs and promoting “social resilience”, investing in supporting the digital transformation of non-profit organizations (NGOs), schools, and small/medium enterprises (SMEs). LINE Taiwan continues to pursue its corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a variety of areas, including promoting blood drives, launching a LINE Digital Campus Program in May to facilitate the educational sector, and introducing Biz-Solutions, a digital platform for helping SMEs.
■ New Products and Services for Taiwan
In addition, at LINE CONVERGE, LINE Taiwan announced a wide range of new products and features and updates to popular services in Taiwan. Among those highlights:
■ LINE TODAY to introduce film/drama popularity board and paid content services
Launched in 2016, LINE TODAY has since established commercial licensing arrangements with more than 600 content partners to date. LINE also continues to develop and improve the service, in September adding features so users can rate and comment about shows, and in October launching discussion boards for popular films and popular TV dramas. Up next, LINE TODAY plans to add paid content services including a collaboration with Readmoo to sell e-books in Q4 this year and a collaboration with Sportcast in Q1 next year to bring paid sports contents onto the platform.
■ LINE TV to launch 3 original productions, plus free subscription service
In addition to LINE TV’s continuing slate of original productions, LINE TV has added an ad-free, 720P service for smart TVs, with plans to support Android TV, Apple TV, and Samsung TV to maximize viewing options.
■ LINE Bank to venture into auto insurance and more
Having received permission from the Financial Supervisory Commission to participate in non-life insurance businesses, LINE Bank announced its intention to venture into auto insurance.
■ LINE TAXI introduces "LINE TAXI Vehicle Select" service with EV option for carbon reduction
LINE TAXI announced that it is introducing a new LINE TAXI Vehicle Select service that prioritizes the use of electric vehicles. Furthermore, LINE TAXI will be cooperating with consultants to provide drivers with professional etiquette training for the best service quality.
■ LINE Messenger launches LINE INVOICE, announces plans for OpenChat Live in 2023
LINE introduced LINE Safety Check in September, offering assistance to users in the event of natural disasters. In addition, LINE launched LINE INVOICE, a service that allows users to store their invoices on the cloud so they can better manage their spending. Finally, LINE OpenChat will introduce an OpenChat Live function in the first half of 2023 to support simultaneous communications between multiple parties, facilitating audiences of up to 10,000 users.
■ LINE e-commerce develops Social Commerce, adds Group Gifting and Group Buy
LINE e-commerce has accumulated more than 80 billion transactions and 2,200 business partners in its ecosystem over the past four years. LINE then started development of Social Commerce last year, aiming to deliver an innovative and fun social network shopping experience. First up, a new function called Group Buy was added to LINE SHOPPING so that family members, friends, or even strangers can pool orders to claim group discounts. Furthermore, LINE Group Gifting for LINE GIFTSHOP is coming at the end of November so users can share the gifts they purchase with an entire group in just one click. Finally LINE SHOPPING Broadcast will introduce Livestream Lobby, giving users an overview of all scheduled shopping livestreams.
■ LINE VOOM instills creativity with video creators
LINE VOOM announced the introduction of a new video creator feature coming in January 2023, a tool that enables users to create short videos, edit audio, and decorate them with stickers in as little as 10 seconds.
■ LINE Sticker Premium increased sales for small/medium creators
In Taiwan alone, over the last 11 years LINE Sticker has supported 770,000 artists and helped create more than 9 million sets of unique stickers. The LINE Sticker Premium package introduced last year was favorably received by users, and today, 60% of subscribers are female while the 20-29 age group makes up the majority of current subscribers. To further boost the popularity of creating stickers, LINE will be launching a series of tuition programs in the fourth quarter of this year, plus we will be holding a sticker creation challenge.