Total winner! Yahoo LINE integration wins November 25 at 17:38
SOFTBANK Group Yahoo and LINE, a major communications application, have agreed to integrate the business by October next year. A huge group that handles online shopping, SNS, financial services, etc. will be born and will have a major impact on the strategies of other companies. Interpret both thoughts and wins leading to integration. (Economics reporter Ryoto Iga Naoko Kawase Satomi Mogi)
How to incorporate Yahoo “smartphone generation”
“We have had a place to exchange information about once a year for the past few years” (President LINE Mr. Takeshi Dezawa). From the Yahoo side, he always said, “Let's do something big together.”
What was the situation of the two companies that came to be realized by “big things” that had not been realized until then?
Z Holdings President Kawamata “Yahoo has senior customers since the personal computer era, and has a complementary relationship with the LINE customer base that uses smartphone apps as an entrance.”
Remarks by President Kentaro Kawamata of Z Holdings (a Yahoo holding company) at the press conference on November 18 that announced the management integration, it can be said that the issue of Yahoo is highlighted.
More than 20 years since its establishment in 1996. The service has been expanded to leverage the portal and portal site when using the Internet, but recently the issue has been how to incorporate the “smartphone generation”.
In fact, prior to the business integration with LINE, the acquisition of a fashion mail-order site ZOZO with an investment of 400 billion yen was also aimed at acquiring young people.
LINE Speed up by strengthening physical strength
How about LINE? Free communication apps have an overwhelming presence of 82 million people in Japan alone.
Recently, various functions such as smart phone settlement and securities investment have been put on the app, and the company has rushed to expand revenue sources other than just advertising. On the other hand, smartphone payments have become a “consumer battle” due to large-scale return campaigns aimed at expanding the use of operators.
LINE's financial results are deficit, partly due to the prior investment in AI = Artificial Intelligence technology that holds the key to new services. Rather than continuing to make upfront investment alone, it can be said that the company has radically strengthened its physical strength through business integration, and has attempted to increase its speed by developing smartphone payments and new services.
With this business integration, LINE joins the SoftBank group. While accepting Softbank's "color", it is trying to incorporate its financial power and AI technology.
Will it be "third pole"?
The greater sense of crisis shared by the two companies is how to compete with overseas giant IT companies.
LINE President Dezawa “The Internet industry has a“ Winner Takes All ”structure in which everything, such as human resources, funds, and data, is concentrated.”
This word also overlaps with the strategy of Masayoshi Son of the SoftBank Group, which emphasizes being number one.
If the two companies merge, sales will surpass rival Rakuten and become the top domestic major Internet-related companies. The presence of smartphone payments in a “staggered” state will increase rapidly.
On the other hand, if you can talk to a huge IT company overseas, the story is different. “GAFA” is a collective term for Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple in the US, and “BAT” by fast-growing Chinese players, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. This is because there is already a difference.
These companies have a large amount of data, which is a key to attracting users to the natural “economic zone” that can complete all services such as online shopping and cashless payment, and to win the competition of the next generation .
Just looking at the movement of the Americans in November, Google announced that it will acquire Fitbit, a service that collects heart rate and sleep data and connects to health management. In addition, it has become clear that it will start banking services for Google users in partnership with Citigroup, a major financial institution.
Facebook has also announced that it will start a new payment service in the United States, Facebook Pay, and each company is working quickly to expand its economic zone.
Aiming for “super application”
Z Holdings President Kawamata “I want to create a third pole (against the US and China) from Japan and Asia”
The key to that is likely to be the LINE customer base in Asia.
LINE has 45 million (1st) users in Thailand, 21 million (1st) in Taiwan, and 16 million (2nd) in Indonesia. In Asia, the growth of companies that handle “super apps” is remarkable.
Instead of installing apps such as payments, dispatch, and travel reservations on smartphones, you can use these services on a single app. Companies such as “Grab” in Singapore and “Gojek” in Indonesia are known.
LINE also wants to take in Yahoo's internet service and make it a super application.
In principle, the Yahoo logo and brand can only be used in Japan in conjunction with a license agreement with an American company. However, if the two companies integrate, it will be possible to provide various Internet services to LINE customers.
Is it possible to put out speed?
At a press conference on the 18th, the two companies stated that they would “consider after integration” for detailed strategies such as the future of overlapping services, including smartphone payments.
Completion of the integration procedure is scheduled for October next year. In the meantime, the focus will be on smoothly clearing the examinations of relevant authorities, including the Japan Fair Trade Commission.
In order to protect the country and go abroad in the internet industry where the eyes of live horses are outstanding, it seems that the key is to draw a strategy after integration with a sense of speed while proceeding smoothly with the integration procedure.
Economic Department reporter Ryoto Iga
Entered in 2006 Sendai Station Okinawa Bureau Economic Department Network News Department and again from this summer Economic Department
Naoko Kawase, reporter, Economic Department
After joining Niigata Station in Sapporo in 2011, now in charge of the information and communications industry
Satomi Mogi, reporter of the Ministry of Economic Affairs
Joined NHK after working as a free paper editor.
Ministry of Economic Affairs from 2017 after Saitama Bureau and Morioka Bureau