was a Japanese internet holding company owned by A Holdings, a joint venture between

SoftBank Group is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a m ...

and

Naver Corporation Naver Corporation () is a South Korean internet conglomerate headquartered in Seongnam that operates the search engine Naver. Naver established itself as an early pioneer in the use of user-generated content through the creation of the online ...

. It was founded in 2019 as a result of Yahoo! Japan Corporation's change to a holding company structure. In 2020, it merged with

Line Corporation was a Japanese internet company. It was a subsidiary of Z Holdings, a joint venture between SoftBank Group and Naver Corporation. It was established in 2000 as the Japanese subsidiary of South Korean NHN Corporation's online game community si ...

, a subsidiary of South Korean

, and became a subsidiary of A Holdings, a joint venture between SoftBank Group and Naver Corp. As a result, Line Corporation became a subsidiary of Z Holdings. In 2023, Z Holdings merged with four of its subsidiaries, including Yahoo! Japan and Line Corporation, to form

LY 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 Co ...

History

Originally, the company was established as Yahoo Japan Corporation in January 1996, but on October 1, 2019, it changed to a holding company structure due to a company split and changed its corporate name. Due to the reorganization of the group centered on Yahoo Japan Corporation in 2019, the information and communication business division (Yahoo! JAPAN business) was absorbed and split into Yahoo Japan Corporation, and the financial enterprise management division Was split into Z Financial Co., Ltd. and transferred to a holding company, and is responsible for the management function of the entire group centered on subsidiaries from the time of the first corporation. In November 2019 an announcement was made that a joint venture between

Softbank Corp is a Japanese multinational Investment company, investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services ...

and

was agreed upon to merge the Z holdings corporation with

. Under which LINE, as well as various other assets of the Z Holdings Corporation, would be controlled by another holding company called ''A Holdings Corporation''. The A Holdings Corporation ownership was then split 50% between Naver and Softbank Corp. In March 2021

officially merged with

Yahoo! Japan is a Japanese web portal. It was the most-visited website in Japan, nearing monopolistic status. According to ''The Japan Times'', as of 2012, Yahoo! Japan had a footprint on the internet market in Japan. In terms of use as a search engine, ...

, which had been operated by Z Holdings. Upon integrating the two businesses and creating further platforms, the merged company aims to compete with the U.S. tech giants Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple and the Chinese tech giants

Baidu Baidu, Inc. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet services and artificial intelligence. It holds a dominant position in China's search engine market (via Baidu Search), and provides a wide variety of o ...

, Alibaba, and

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

, as well as the Japanese e-commerce giant

Rakuten is a Japanese technology conglomerate based in Tokyo, founded by Hiroshi Mikitani in 1997. Centered around the online retail marketplace Rakuten Ichiba, its businesses include financial services utilizing Fintech, digital content and communi ...

. The merger also gives Z Holdings three additional Asian markets where Line is popular: Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Founded in 2021, LINE Bank is a

commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make a profit. It can also refer to a bank or a division of a larger bank that deals with whol ...

headquartered in

Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, and owned by Z Holdings. In July 2022, SoftBank Corp and Z Holdings announced that they would consolidate PayPay, a smartphone payment service. SoftBank Group, the parent company of SoftBank Corp, had a 50% stake in PayPay and was a consolidated subsidiary. However, SoftBank Corp and Z Holdings jointly invested and established a new holding company called B Holdings. B Holdings became the parent company with a 57.9% stake in PayPay by converting PayPay's preferred shares to common shares, etc. On October 1, 2023, Z Holdings merged with its subsidiaries, Line, Yahoo!, Z Entertainment, and Z Data, to form

, a joint venture between SoftBank Group and Naver Corp.

References

External links

Z Holdings
{{Authority control Z Holdings Internet in Japan Internet properties disestablished in 2023 Internet properties established in 2019 Japanese companies disestablished in 2023 Japanese companies established in 2019 Mass media companies disestablished in 2023 Mass media companies established in 2019 Naver Corporation SoftBank Group Technology companies disestablished in 2023 Technology companies established in 2019 Yahoo! international ja:Zホールディングス