Launching LINE@ is part of Line’s 2016 vision to go beyond chat, and is the first in a series of new service offerings this year.

Ariya Banomyong, managing director of Line Thailand, said that after having tested LINE@ in February last year, the new service was now available with full features to solve the “pain points” of SMEs’ online business and to help simply the digitisation of SMEs.

Out of a total of around 2.8 million SMEs in the country, only about 500,000 are online, while 2 million are small office and home office (SOHO) users and 42 per cent are retailers.

Meanwhile, there are 33 million LINE users in the Kingdom, who are all potentially accessible via LINE@, he said.LINE@ is designed to provide marketing tools for SMEs with an easy-to-use concept at an affordable price, the MD said.

LINE@ services will be charged from April 1 via a pricing plan of Basic, Pro and Pro+ packages.

The Basic package will cost Bt998 per month, with unlimited followers and 50,000 broadcast messages, and unlimited timeline posts.

The Pro package will cost Bt1,998 per month with a maximum of 50,000 followers, while the Pro+ package is Bt6,888 a month with up to 300,000 followers.

Both the Pro and Pro+ packages cover unlimited broadcast messages and timeline posts.

“We are offering a promotion for three months at Bt998 per month with unlimited usage, including the number of followers, broadcast messages and timeline posts,” he said.

During last year’s trial period of LINE@ in Thailand, in February and early March, there were 429,520 LINE@ accounts, he said.The company is not, however, disclosing its targets for the LINE@ service.

The beauty of LINE@, Ariya said, is that it offers powerful features, including Broadcast, for the instant broadcasting of messages, or coupons, to a LINE@ account’s followers; Coupon, to easily create coupons and promotions, for PC usage only; Rich Message, which shows a full-screen image embedding up to six links, helping to increase traffic to a website; a Poll & Survey feature; 1-on-1 chat, to easily chat with customers via LINE@; Auto Reply and Timeline; as well as LINE@ Premium ID.

“Normally, a LINE@ account will come with a random ID, but if users want to have their own name for their LINE@ account, they can use LINE Premium ID for Bt200 per 11 months,” he added. Moreover, it is not only SMEs that can benefit from using LINE@.

The Pullman Grand Sukhumvit Hotel – a 325-room, four-restaurant property – used LINE@ as a marketing communication channel to get exposure to the mass market shortly after an eight-month renovation, said Philippe Le Bourhis, general manager of the hotel.