Private company

LY Corporation

Logo: LY Corporation, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

Japanese internet company

LY Corporation (LINEヤフー株式会社, LINE Yafū Kabushiki-gaisha; lit. 'Line Yahoo Corporation'), trading as LYC, is a Japanese internet company owned by A Holdings, a joint venture between SoftBank Group of Japan, and Naver Corporation of South Korea, founded in 2023 by the merger of Z Holdings, and four subsidiaries including Line Corporation and Yahoo!2 Its revenue was ¥1.7 trillion in 2023.1 It is part of A Holdings Corporation.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

Jan 31, 1996Founded1
  • IndustryInternet1
  • HeadquartersTokyo1
  • Websitewww.lycorp.co.jp/en
  • Legal formkabushiki gaisha1
  • Listed onTokyo Stock Exchange (4689)1
Tokyo Garden Terrace Kioicho
Photo: Akonnchiroll, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons5

LY Corporation (LINEヤフー株式会社, LINE Yafū Kabushiki-gaisha; lit. 'Line Yahoo Corporation'), trading as LYC, is a Japanese internet company owned by A Holdings, a joint venture between SoftBank Group of Japan, and Naver Corporation of South Korea, founded in 2023 by the merger of Z Holdings, and four subsidiaries including Line Corporation and Yahoo! Japan.2

Corporate structure

LY Corporation is part of a group headed by SoftBank Group. 466 entities, 45 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries listed in Exhibit 21 of annual reports filed with the SEC; subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

What it owns

What LY Corporation reports owning in its annual reports to the SEC: buildings, land and equipment, real estate and locations, investments, intangible assets and inventory, at the end of its latest fiscal year and a year before.

Stakes and holdings (Wikidata)

Things Wikidata records the company as owning, with the share when stated.1

The story

In March 2021, Z Holdings, which owns Yahoo! Japan, and Line Corporation merged their businesses. The companies aimed to reduce costs by unifying overlapping services such as QR code payment, and increase traffic between the approximately 200 services they offer, focusing on the three businesses of search, messaging apps, and advertising. They also announced plans to link the two companies' IDs within the group by the end of fiscal 2022.

However, it was revealed shortly after the merger that Line's personal information was accessible from China without adequate explanation to users. The actual work of ID linking was delayed as the group reviewed its data management system, and the outlook became uncertain.

In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, ZHD's consolidated results showed that its main advertising business saw revenue decline by 1.2% from the previous year. Domestic e-commerce, which ZHD had been aiming to become the domestic leader in terms of sales, also saw growth slow to 0.9%. As a result, ZHD's results were sluggish, and ZHD President Kentaro Kawabe said, "ZHD's services are losing their competitive edge against rivals, and we have a strong sense of crisis."

In August 2022, ZHD announced plans to link the user IDs of Line, Yahoo! Japan, and PayPay in 2023 or later to strengthen mutual traffic.

In February 2023, ZHD announced plans to merge the three companies, ZHD, Yahoo! Japan, and Line Corporation, under its umbrella by the end of fiscal 2023. Even after the business integration, ZHD and Line Corporation continued to exist as separate companies and services, but ZHD President Kentaro Kawabe said, "It worked for the transitional period, but in order to promote further integration, we will unify and accelerate decision-making." On April 28, it was announced that the new company would be named Line Yahoo (LY Corporation in English). The CEO of the new company will be Takeshi Idezawa, the CEO of ZHD, who said, "The business environment is still challenging, but we will fundamentally streamline our business through the merger."

In July 2023, ZHD announced that it would merge the domestic financial businesses of Line Corporation and ZHD. The two businesses, Line Securities and Line Credit, which handles personal loans, were consolidated into Z Financial, a financial intermediate holding company in the group that owns PayPay Bank and PayPay Securities.

In March 2023, Yahoo!, Line, and PayPay launched a joint mileage service called LYP Mileage. When you purchase items at participating stores and earn miles, you will receive PayPay points at a certain redemption rate. Yahoo! President Takashi Ozawa said, "This is a long-cherished plan that has finally come to fruition."

On October 1, 2023, ZHD, its subsidiaries Line Corporation, Yahoo! Japan, Z Entertainment, and Z Data merged to form LY Corporation.

From Wikipedia’s article on LY Corporation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Products and brands

  • LINE

Listed on Wikidata.1

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

Owners

Subsidiaries

Also owns

From Wikidata.1

Acquisitions

  1. Apr 2023Acquired PayPay Securities Corporation1
  2. Oct 1, 2022Acquired PayPay1

Revenue over time

As stated on Wikidata, in the currency reported.

Revenue

  • 20231.7T JPY1

Timeline

  1. Oct 1, 2023Renamed Name changed to LINEヤフー株式会社1
  2. Oct 1, 2019Renamed Name changed to Zホールディングス株式会社1
  3. Nov 4, 1997Went public Listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange1
  4. Jan 31, 1996Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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