Messaging app firm Line is testing a $2/month standalone music streaming app in Thailand
even if it is just $2 http://tcrn.ch/1ejJKW7 Jon Russell / @jonrussell : Line needs to diversify $$ beyond games & show it can make $$ from outside of Japan — hence this $2/month music app http://tcrn.ch/1ejJKW7 See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
This $2/month Thai test is the third leg of a deliberate diversification push: earlier this year Line experimented with a YouTube-like video service and moved into grocery delivery across Southeast Asia. The company also already owns streaming music assets, having bought Microsoft's MixRadio last year, whose iOS and Android apps shipped days before this test.
The stakes are revenue concentration: Line's money comes overwhelmingly from games and from Japan, and the coverage frames this app explicitly as proof it can earn outside its home market. Weeks after the Thai trial, Line launched a paid music streaming tier at home in Japan, suggesting a two-track validation strategy.
First-order effects
- Thai Line users get a low-priced standalone music subscription, giving Line its first read on whether music can monetize outside Japan without being bundled into the chat app.
Second-order effects
- If the Thai price point holds, Line's existing MixRadio catalog becomes the supply side for Southeast Asian expansion rather than a standalone property competing on its own.
Third-order effects
- The broader pattern — video, groceries, now music — points to messaging platforms becoming commerce-and-media hubs in emerging markets, but Line's stalled user growth outside Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia caps how far that model scales.
The trend: Messaging platforms are layering paid media and services onto chat to escape single-market, single-category revenue dependence, with Southeast Asia serving as the pricing test bed.