Business Description
LY Corporation (LINE Yahoo) owns the two properties that dominate online life in Japan. Yahoo! JAPAN is still the country's most-used web portal, an outcome unlike Yahoo's fate almost everywhere else, while LINE is the messaging app used by the overwhelming majority of the population and works closer to national communications infrastructure than to a chat service; it also leads the market in Taiwan and Thailand. Revenue divides roughly into Commerce at about 42%, spanning Yahoo! Shopping, the fashion site ZOZO and the office-supplies distributor Askul; Media at about 36%, essentially advertising; and a Strategic segment of some 22% holding fintech and newer ventures.
Advertising carries far higher margins than commerce, so profit skews toward Media even though Commerce is the larger revenue line, and growth turns on merging the two user bases by signing LINE's users into Yahoo's advertising and shopping systems. The other swing factor is PayPay, the QR-code payments app that became Japan's dominant mobile wallet, whose accounting treatment and eventual listing are a standing investor question. A large data breach disclosed in 2023 drew administrative guidance from Japan's communications ministry, which pressed SoftBank and Naver over the ownership structure, an unusual case of a government intervening in an internet company's capital relationships. The legal entity dates from the 1996 incorporation of Yahoo Japan and reports on a March fiscal year.
Corporate Data
| Ticker | 4689 |
|---|---|
| Exchange | Tokyo Stock Exchange |
| Size Category | TOPIX Large70 |
| Market Segment | Prime Market |
| Sector | Information & Communication |
| Head Office | Tokyo Garden Terrace Kioicho, 1-3 Kioicho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-8282, Japan |
| Founded | January 31, 1996 |
| Fiscal Year End | March 31 |
| Website | Official website |