Should Facebook Watch Out For This Upstart Competitor?

source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johanl/

With 163,071,460 total users in the United States and a population penetration rate of 52.56 percent, it may seem like a difficult proposition for a small social networking application from Japan to break through Facebook’s (NASDAQ:FB) hold on one of the most active “liking” and “status updating” cultures in the world. But Line — a chat application first launched in Asia — reached 100 million users about three times faster than Facebook, and developer NHN Japan Corp is putting its growth goals before its profit targets in its attempt to take on the United States-grown social network on its home turf.

“This year, we want to capture North America,” chief strategy and marketing office Jun Masuda told Bloomberg. “We’re not focused on being in the black. It isn’t time to cash in yet.”

To extend the application’s reach, the company is refining its strategy, setting up a marketing team based in the United States, and planning joint promotions and content-delivery agreements with local companies, the publication reported Thursday…