In 2018, the LINE sticker business in Thailand was a phenomenon with the largest growth in the region. LINE stickers have been downloaded continuously, especially when it came to the market for creator’s stickers which has grown over 40% last year. Throughout 2018, Thai people have sent over 10 billion stickers, or an average of 31 million times a day.
Kanop Supamanop Stickers Business Director, LINE Thailand said that last year was a year that LINE sticker business has grown to No. 1 in countries with most LINE sticker users such as Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia. The amount of sticker buyers has increased 28%. The amount of paid stickers sent was over 10 billion times, or an average of 31 million times a day. LINE has collected the data over New Year holiday and found that the amount of paid and free stickers sent from 31 Dec 2018 to 1 Jan 2019 was over 252 million times. Especially on 1 Jan, people sent over 157 million stickers over the course of 24 hours, or an average of 6.5 million times in one hour, which was 51% higher than average. These numbers have shown that stickers have remained a popular communication tool for Thai people. Stickers help to save time from tying long sentences, and are easier to convey emotions in a clear and fun way.
“The growth of LINE stickers in the past year was a result of several factors from the content itself, such as the uniqueness of stickers. Many sets have been a hit among the people. Four sticker trends that everyone should keep an eye on include stickers with specific names, a play of words, capitalised letter, and pictures of celebrities. They have been very popular with the people. These trends go together with the downloaded amount of both official and creator’s stickers. All stickers on Top 10 correspond to the mentioned trends.
Kanop said discussed the sticker-making trend in 2019 that, as LINE has partnered with content creators, artists and celebrities in creating Themes, LINE themes have also becoming increasingly popular. Statistically, it was found that one in four of people who downloaded a celebrity’s sticker also downloaded a theme of that celebrity as well.
As for the marketing strategy of LINE sticker business in 2019, we will continue to focus on expanding payment channels to increase options and convenience for users. The highlights would be accepting payment through mobile banking channel, partnership of several parties like creators and distribution channels to further on the success of O2O Strategy, as well as to organise for different loyalty programmes to create bonds between sticker users and LINE.
