Messaging services company Line Corp. floated on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday with shares debuting at $42, a premium of 33 percent of its initial public offering price of $32.84. making it the biggest float of a technology company in 2016.

According to CNBC Line offered 22 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange, and 13 million shares on the Tokyo stock exchange making it the biggest float of a tech company in 2016.

During the day shares in the company hit a peak of $44.49 valuing the company at more than $9 billion, before closing the day at $41.58 with a $7.28 billion market cap.

The company, the Japanese subsidiary of Korean internet search giant Nave primarily makes the LINE messaging app that provides free voice calls, messaging and complimentary services including payment services and music streaming, and gets the majority of its revenue from games, digital stickers, and advertising; in its prospectus the company said that it lost $2 million on $298 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2016.

Line’s games are said to have racked up over 628 million downloads and the platform has 218 million monthly active users with the app being most popular in Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Expansion

While Line remains popular in selected Asian countries it has a range of competitors globally, in particular the Facebook, Inc. owned WhatsApp which dominates most non-English speaking markets.

The company though is not resting on its laurels and is actively trying to expand its user base, and it is available in over 200 countries worldwide; the way they are aiming to grow their user base is through a process they call “culturalization,” by which Line develops services and features tailored to users’ needs in individual markets potentially giving it an advantage over their competitors.

“We’re trying to expand our service, and it’s not just messaging — content, car navigation and more. The messaging service is just one dimension,” Line Chief Globalization Officer Jungho Shin told Re/Code.

IP is also part of Line’s strategy with the company being famed among its user base for its characters, which with in app purchases and licensing agreements make up a decent portion of their revenue; in places like Japan and Thailand Line characters are seen on t-shirts, bags, and various other products.

In after-hours trading Line shares closed up an additional 3.42 percent to $43.

Image credit: Line Corp.