Line capitalising on online ad spending rise with OAs

Line Thailand says it will focus more on business customers with new features for Line Official Accounts (OAs) as the company marked the oneyear anniversary of its “Life on Line” vision yesterday.

“We see tighter ad spending in Thailand this year, but online ad spending continues to grow as consumers shift their spending behaviour from offline to more online channels during the crisis,” Phichet Rerkpreecha, chief executive of Line Thailand, said at a news conference.

He said Line aims to become the platform for this new lifestyle, continuing to invest in staff and product development and “launching new services for corporate solutions, small businesses as well as enhancing OAs in the second half”.

Referring to the first half, Mr Phichet said Line’s business performance achieved its targets, with new features and services offered to meet user demand during the pandemic, including work-from-home measures and social distancing.

Over the past year, the number of Line users rose from 44 to 46 million and people spend an average of one-third of their online time on Line, he said.

Line Call saw a 300% jump in user numbers from January to March this year. Line also developed a shared screen feature that has the capacity to handle up to 500 concurrent users.

The number of OA subscribers jumped from 3 million to 4 million in May. Myshop, one of the OA’s features, saw the number of sellers grow 69% from February to April with a 334% growth in orders.

Line’s food delivery service Line Man saw users in the first three months this year rise 300%, compared with the average number of users last year.

Thai food, Isan food, shabu and yakiniku are among the most popular genres ordered by customers.

Line Thailand ushered in the “Find Food” programme to serve as a venue where farmers can meet buyers. The company also provides a platform where customers can reach out to accommodation and service providers.

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We see tighter ad spending in Thailand this year, but online ad spending continues to grow.

PHICHET RERKPREECHA

Chief executive, Line Thailand

In related news, AGB Nielsen Media Research Thailand pointed out Thailand’s first-half media spending dropped 13% year-on-year to 51.2 billion baht.

The largest drop was for cinema, with a fall of 55% to 1.67 billion baht, followed by in-store spending, with a decrease of 40% to 309 million, and print media with a plunge of 39% to 1.7 billion.

TV still recorded the biggest media spending with 29.2 billion baht in the first half, a drop of 15% year-on-year.

Among surveyed media, only the internet channel saw an increase in media spending, with a rise of 23% to 11 billion baht in the first half. In the first six months, four major industries saw a drop in media spending. They are food and beverage with a drop of 22%, personal care and cosmetics with a fall of 10%, media and marketing with a drop of 2% and automotive with a dip of 32%.