LINE Corp, the company behind Japan’s most popular messaging app, considers itself the “godfather of stickers” – and perhaps rightly so. It has revealed that in the first year since stickers started being made and sold on its Creators Market, more than 390,000 ‘creator’ users have registered stickers for sale, generating revenue of JPY8.95 billion ($75 million).

What’s more, 100,000 sticker sets are currently on sale and are the number two revenue source for the company, topped only by games.

Average earnings for the best-selling stickers reached JPY50.5 million for the top 10 sellers. The statistics for individual creator revenue show that the average earnings for the best-selling creators was JPY109 million for the top 10.

After passing LINE’s review process, creators’ stickers go on sale in the Line Store and the Line in-app Sticker Shop where they can be purchased by other Line users. Approximately 50 per cent of sales for these stickers goes back to the creator after a 30 per cent service charge from App Store, Google Play or other relevant app shop is deducted.

“Many characters designed as stickers have received merchandising and publishing deals, and more still have gone on to collaborate with other corporations, proving that the sticker-based platform has become an incubator for creativity and nurturing new ideas,” the company said in a statement.

LINE also announced the launch of a platform called ‘Creators Management,’ which will help top-selling creators merchandise and manage the rights of their products.

The new service will connect creators with companies and other possible licensees “in order to stimulate corporate tie-ups and other merchandising deals featuring sticker characters.”

The platform also offers trademark application support and helps creators protect their products against piracy.

LINE plans to add new features to the Creators Market that promise to make stickers easier to create and search for.

The company said it will also be releasing a major update for its in-app sticker shop “to increase the appeal of creators’ stickers to potential buyers and make them easier to search for.”

“By helping creators and new stickers get their start and finding top creators for future management opportunities, LINE hopes to build an entire ecosystem centered on creators and their creativity,” it added, claiming it is the largest provider of sticker-based communication in the world.

Line renewed its IPO application on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in April, which expired at the end of Japan’s fiscal year on 31 March, but sources had reported the company is unlikely to go public in the near future.

Jeanie Han, CEO of LINE Euro-Americas, told Mobile World Live in March that the company, with around 65 apps with 800 million downloads under its banner in addition to its core messaging app, which has 181 million monthly active users, is working hard in its efforts to be a “Life platform.”

The company has brought messaging, games, stickers and the ability to pay bills via LINE Pay into one place, with the mission to make a users’ life easier and become “the only app you need”.

Han also said the messaging app is “growing rapidly” in European countries like Spain as well as Latin America and the US.