Japanese social networking firm Line made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday at USD 42 per share, in the largest technology initial public offering of 2016.
Shares of the Tokyo-based company jumped more than 30 percent after the offering with a high of USD 44.49, valuing the company at more than USD 9 billion.
The company provides free voice calls and messaging, and gets the bulk of its revenue from games, digital stickers, and advertising. Line's games have racked up a cumulative 628 million downloads, the company said.
Line is also expanding into music streaming and taxi hailing to compete with WhatsApp, Facebook, and Tencent's WeChat, which dominates in China where Line is blocked. The company said it has 218 million monthly active users, with two-thirds in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.Line was created after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan as a way to overcome downed communications. It's now the seventh most-used messenger app in the world, the company said, with more than 35 apps available for download. Stickers are a main source of revenue, contributing to more than USD 270 million in sales. "Stick packs" cost between USD 2 to USD 3 for a set of one or two dozen.
Line is the fifth tech company to go public this year. At this point in 2015, 14 tech companies had gone public.
The overall IPO market has slowed significantly this year. As of last month, 31 companies had gone public in the U.S., down from 69 in the first five months of 2015 and 115 in the same period in 2014, Barron's reported, citing Renaissance Capital.
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