Chat App LINE Up 30% on IPO, Valued at Over $9B

LINE is officially the only publicly traded chat app. The Japan-born messaging platform, which is extremely popular in many Asian countries, has debuted on the New York Stock Exchange.

The stock opened at $42.74, 30% higher than expected. This places LINE’s valuation around $9.1 Billion, making it the biggest tech IPO so far this year.

Launched in 2011, LINE has more than 200 million active users. Unlike similar services such as Snapchat—which has not yet figured out monetization and relies heavily on ads—LINE nicely balances revenues from ads (35%), content (35%), and communications (22%). This diversity makes it an appealing prospect to investors.

At the time of publishing LINE stock was trading at $42.95, and the days high was $44.44.