LINE, the mobile messaging app of South Korean portal giant NAVER, has beaten its rivals in sales of applications available on Google Play Store for the past four years, a global industry tracker said Friday.

In the four years up to March this year, the Korean messaging app topped others in the Google Play app worldwide revenue rankings. It took the top three spots due to robust sales of games, cartoon content and avatar apps, according to a report from App Annie, a U.S.-based app analytics company. 

LINE and other app developers pay some commission for the sale of their contents to app market operators such as the Google Play store.

Kakao Corp., the operator of the country's top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, ranked 5th in accumulated sales in the Google Play market, the report said.

Meanwhile, U.S. social media giant Facebook ranked first in terms of downloads, followed by popular smartphone instant messenger WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram, which is an online mobile photo and video-sharing social networking service, it said. (Yonhap)