LINE Corporation, which operates the LINE free call and messaging app, has posted Q4 revenues 15.9bn Yen (£94.9m), a 16 per cent increase over the previous quarter. It has also revealed total annual revenues for 2013 of 51.8bn Yen (£309m).

Of these revenues, the LINE app accounted for 12.2bn Yen of the Q4 total, and 34.3bn of the total 2013 revenues. 60 per cent of LINE app revenues came from in-game purchase, with another 20 per cent coming from sticker purchases. There are currently over 350 sticker sets featuring popular characters in the Sticker Shop, with plans to further expand the portfolio.

LINE currently has 340m users worldwide, and says that in recent months, it has seen a marked increase in new user numbers in India, Mexico, Venezuela, and other S. American countries. The company is targeting 500m users before the end of 2014. The company’s LINE GAME division has forged new partnerships with game developers in Finland and France to release new titles, bringing the total number of available games to 51.

By way of comparison, Twitter last week reported Q4 2103 revenues of $243m (£148m) together with a net annual loss of $645m, which was attributed to stock obligations following its IPO in November. Twitter’s user numbers grew by a modest 3.8 per cent in Q4, to reach a total of 241m.

“Looking back on 2013, LINE broke 100m users in January and then 300m in November; it was a year of unprecedented growth for our company that brought a swift expansion in our user base,” said LINE Corporation CEO, Akira Morikawa. LINE also captured the top spot globally, according to App Annie, where LINE ranked first in sales for iOS and Android apps (games excluded) and publisher sales (games excluded) for 2013.

“However, this does not mean that we can start letting our guard down. We must strive to understand our users’ needs on a global scale, and in addition to releasing new services, developing new features, and furthering localization in markets around the world.”