LINE OpenChat Thailand hits 24M monthly users after moving to the third tab

LINE Thailand says OpenChat, its open group-chat feature, went from 20 million to 24 million monthly users in the month after the company moved it to the third tab of the LINE app, based on data as of 30 September 2026. The figures were presented at LINE's OpenChat Day event and reported by Brand Inside on 11 October 2026. LINE also said it plans to work with brands and partners inside OpenChat communities, but it did not announce an ad product, pricing or a launch date for that work.

What LINE Thailand announced at OpenChat Day

The head of LINE Thailand's OpenChat business unit told Brand Inside that monthly users rose from 20 million to 24 million one month after OpenChat moved to the app's third tab. In the same interview he gave two more usage numbers, all dated 30 September 2026. Rooms were joined 7.4 million times after the new tab launched. Total OpenChat usage went from 1,800 million times a month to more than 2,250 million.

The trade site Thumbsup published its own report on the same data on 7 October 2026. It matches Brand Inside on the 20 million to 24 million rise, the 7.4 million room joins and the 2,250 million monthly usage figure.

The table below collects the headline numbers LINE Thailand shared. All of them are LINE's own figures; neither outlet cites independent measurement.

Why LINE moved OpenChat to the third tab

LINE Thailand's Director of Product explained the change to Brand Inside. Before the move, OpenChat rooms sat in the same chat list people use for family, friends and work. Users found it hard to tell personal chats apart from community chats. OpenChat rooms are also busy, so as messages and notifications piled up, the main chat list became cluttered and harder to follow. Giving OpenChat its own tab separates the two.

Discovery was the second problem. Until now, most people entered an OpenChat room because someone sent them a link or a QR code for a room they already knew about. If you wanted to find a room on a topic you cared about, there was no obvious place to start. The third tab now shows the rooms a user has already joined, rooms that are trending, rooms picked by LINE staff, and a set of categories. People can also search by keyword or category from the tab, without going through the main chat screen.

Thumbsup reported that LINE ran the change under a Thai-language campaign line built around joining from "tab three". It described the intended flow as discover, explore and take part, all in one place. Neither source gives the exact date the tab went live; both only say the data covers roughly the first month.

How big OpenChat rooms get in Thailand

OpenChat currently runs in three countries: Japan, Thailand and Taiwan. According to the OpenChat business head, Japanese users lean toward anime and niche interests, while Thailand has both very large communities and a long tail of smaller interests.

Thailand has more than 100,000 active rooms. A standard room is capped at 5,000 members. When a room fills up, its admin can apply to LINE for more capacity, which is raised in steps: from 5,000 to 10,000, then 20,000, then 30,000 and onward.

LINE gave Brand Inside membership counts dated 9 October 2026. The biggest fan rooms were a room called ALWAYS with about 22,400 members, the Butterbear fan room with about 21,500, and the TOP TODSAPOL room with about 20,300. The largest room overall was not a fan room. It was a university-entrance room named for TCAS70 and the dek70 student cohort, with more than 87,600 members. That total adds up the members of its many sub-groups, which is why it is far above the normal cap.

What Thai users gather around

LINE groups the main interests of Thai OpenChat users into five categories: Entertainment, Studies, Job/Career, Lifestyle and Chit-chat Community. Entertainment covers artists, series, shows and fandoms. Studies covers study partners, note sharing and exam preparation. Job/Career covers work news, career advice and hiring. Lifestyle covers health, sports, pets, food and travel. Chit-chat is general conversation not tied to one subject.

LINE also shared how much monthly visits to each category grew in the third quarter of 2026 compared with the same quarter of 2025:

• Chit-chat: about 40 million more visits a month
• Studies: 33 million more
• Lifestyle: 26 million more
• Job/Career: 18 million more
• Entertainment: 10 million more

The order is worth noticing. Fandom rooms are among the biggest single rooms, yet Entertainment added the fewest visits. General chat and study rooms added the most.

One study use surprised LINE's teams abroad, the OpenChat head said. Primary and secondary school teachers in Thailand use OpenChat to assign homework, follow up on work and talk with students and parents. This works because OpenChat lets a user create a profile separate from their personal LINE account, so a student does not have to rename their main account to join a class group.

LINE Thailand's head of marketing and content business partnerships gave smaller examples. One room for people who keep exotic pets runs Live Talk sessions where almost no one speaks, because members join to listen to frogs. Another room is for people from the provinces who moved to Bangkok for work and live alone; members say good morning when they leave for work, check in when they get home, and say good night before bed. His point was that people may join a room because of a topic, but they stay because of the people in it.

OpenChat during emergencies

LINE gave Brand Inside view counts for rooms set up during crises. During COVID-19, related rooms reached up to 30 million views a day as places to collect information from reliable agencies, answer health questions and check rumours. During the earthquake LINE referred to, related rooms drew about 3.4 million views a day, as people shared information about safe areas and asked for help. Flood rooms for Hat Yai reached 1.3 million views a day and Bangkok flood rooms 2.9 million a day. The source does not date the earthquake or the floods, so this post does not either.

Trust, moderation and new features

With more members and messages, LINE said it has to help people keep up with conversations and judge which rooms are trustworthy. Brand Inside lists these measures:

• A warning shown before a user joins an OpenChat, telling them to watch for scams
• Back-end tools for admins to block users and set banned words, plus training for admins on spotting and handling scammers
• An "Official OpenChat" badge for verified agencies, organisations and artists
• A "Super OpenChat" badge for communities that are well managed

Thumbsup adds more detail. LINE filters keywords linked to scams and abusive language, shows "Fraud & Scam Protection" pop-ups, and lets users report an individual member directly. LINE's back-end data, as quoted by Thumbsup, says bans that follow a report and review are almost 100% accurate. Back-end staff cannot see chat content unless they join the room. Content saved in Notes is kept permanently, while chat messages have a limited storage period, the same as normal chats.

For keeping up with busy rooms, LINE pointed to Thread, which splits a conversation into topics, and AI Summary, which summarises room messages for people who come back after a gap. Thumbsup reports that LINE is also preparing an improved recommendation system, new category icons and community avatars, and emoji reactions. It gives no dates for those.

LINE's pitch to brands, and what it did not announce

Brand Inside reports LINE's next steps for OpenChat in general terms. LINE wants to make relevant communities easier to find, give members, students, creators and KOLs a bigger role in building communities, and work with brands and partners in entertainment, education, sports, lifestyle and services to create new activities.

Thumbsup's report on 7 October 2026 frames the same plan in marketing language. It says LINE intends to use communities across the consumer funnel and turn audiences into "core fans" of products and services through four approaches: Discover (helping people find new communities as trends emerge), Activate (driving participation through campaigns and activities), Grow (pushing creators and users to build communities) and Connect (linking brands and partners to create new experiences).

Here is what neither report contains:

• No OpenChat ad product, ad placement or sponsored-room format
• No pricing, minimum spend or commercial terms for brands
• No launch date or application process for the brand and partner programme
• No rules on how brands may run or join rooms, beyond the existing Official OpenChat badge for verified organisations and artists
• No exact date for the move to the third tab
• No breakdown of the 24 million users by age, region or device

So, as of 12 October 2026, Discover/Activate/Grow/Connect is a direction LINE described, not a product a brand can buy. Anyone who tells a client otherwise is ahead of what LINE has said.

What this means for Thai marketers

For brands in Thailand, LINE now has two separate ways to talk to people. A LINE Official Account is still the channel for one-to-many broadcasts, coupons and customer service, and paid reach inside LINE still runs through LINE Ads and Official Account planning. OpenChat is different: it is a many-to-many room where members talk to each other, and LINE has not attached any paid option to it.

That shapes what is sensible right now:

• Check whether rooms about your category already exist. Search the third tab by keyword and category. A fan room, a study room or a regional chat room may already hold your audience, run by someone else.
• If you run a room, plan for moderation before growth. LINE's own safety list (banned words, blocking, scam warnings, admin training) shows what admins are expected to handle. A brand room that fills with scam messages does more harm than no room.
• Know the size limits. A standard room holds 5,000 members. Going past that requires an application to LINE, which is granted in steps. The 87,600-member TCAS70 room reached that size through many sub-groups, not one giant room.
• Treat creators and KOLs as the likely entry point. Brand Inside reports LINE wants members, students, creators and KOLs to help build communities, and Thumbsup's Grow pillar pushes creators and users to build them. Working with people who already run active rooms fits that direction better than launching an empty branded room.
• Do not budget for OpenChat ads. There is no product to budget for. If LINE launches a brand programme under Connect, the terms will matter more than the pitch.

Education businesses and lifestyle brands have the clearest fit: Studies and Lifestyle added the second- and third-most monthly visits in Q3 2026, and Job/Career still added 18 million. Entertainment has some of the biggest individual rooms but the smallest increase in visits. If you want help fitting OpenChat into a wider social media marketing plan alongside paid social, that is where a community test sits best: as one part of the plan, measured on its own.

FAQ

How many people use LINE OpenChat in Thailand?

LINE Thailand says OpenChat had 24 million monthly users as of 30 September 2026, up from 20 million before the move to the third tab. These are LINE's own figures from its OpenChat Day event; no independent audit was cited.

Can brands advertise in LINE OpenChat?

No, not through any product LINE has announced. LINE described plans to work with brands and partners (the "Connect" pillar in Thumbsup's report), but neither source mentions an ad format, pricing or a launch date. Brands can still use a LINE Official Account and LINE Ads, which are separate products.

How many members can an OpenChat room have?

A standard OpenChat room is capped at 5,000 members. An admin whose room is full can apply to LINE for more capacity, which is raised in steps to 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 and beyond.

When did OpenChat move to the third tab?

The exact date was not stated. LINE said the 24 million figure came one month after the move and that the data runs to 30 September 2026, which suggests the change happened around late August 2026. LINE did not confirm the date.

OpenChat's numbers are LINE's own and some details are still unclear, but the direction is plain: LINE wants community rooms to become something brands plan around. Until it publishes real terms for brands, the useful work is learning how rooms in your category behave. If you want a second view on where OpenChat fits next to your LINE OA and paid social, Relevant Audience can help you map it.