Japanese Line Yahoo in progress

On the 31st of last month, Line Yahoo submitted a report to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan titled “Report on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Administrative Guidance of March 5, 2024 and April 16, 2024 to be submitted on March 31, 2025.”

The report stated, “For Naver and Naver Cloud usage systems, authentication-based usage due to system separation was suspended at the end of March,” and “For domestic and overseas subsidiary usage systems, authentication-based usage due to system separation is also scheduled to be suspended at the end of March 2026.”

There is an interpretation that the “overseas subsidiary” specified by Line Yahoo refers to Line Plus. A Japanese IT industry insider said, “This report should be seen as containing the intention to exclude Line Plus, which is in fact an overseas subsidiary.”

Japanese media evaluated that based on this report, it became clear that there was a policy to structurally exclude Korean personnel from Line operations. Line Yahoo also excluded Naver directors from its board of directors last year. Accordingly, there is a possibility that Naver's actual influence in Japan will disappear.

Naver stated that some reports that it would reorganize its Line Yahoo stake to the Japanese side were groundless. It reiterated that the current shareholding structure of Line Yahoo’s parent company A Holdings is that Naver and Softbank each hold 50%, and that there has been no change in the stake. It explained that the report was about reorganizing the security system, including network separation, and that it was not about ending the consignment relationship with Line Plus. Naver plans to maintain its shareholding structure in the future and continue global business cooperation separately from Line Yahoo’s technological independence.

More and Sources

• https://www.lycorp.co.jp/en/ir/news/auto_20250331504418/pdfFile.pdf