LINE FRIENDS—one of the world's fastest-growing character brands is coming to Toronto with a pop-up store, continuing its global expansion into the Canadian market. The new pop-up follows the overwhelming customer response to the BT21 pop-up store in Scarborough Town Center, which sold out within 2 days of operation in 2018.

BT21—consisting of characters KOYA, RJ, SHOOKY, MANG, CHIMMY, TATA, COOKY, and VAN —will be prominently featured around the store alongside fan-favourite BROWN & FRIENDS, and other beloved characters. Canadian customers of the franchise will have the opportunity to shop exclusive products featuring LINE FRIENDS' popular characters.

PLAY LINE FRIENDS, LINE FRIENDS' secondary retail brand, will open in Yorkdale Shopping Centre, occupying the former Innisfree location from late August to December 31, 2021. Yorkdale is one of Canada's busiest malls with the highest sales per unit area. It attracts countless high-profile brands and has been home to many international brands' first Canadian location.

Canadian retail and lifestyle brand Sukoshi Mart (sukoshimart.com) will be behind both the new Yorkdale store's operations and online retail of PLAY LINE FRIENDS products on their own website.

With LINE FRIENDS' growing popularity with Millennials and Gen. Z around the world, PLAY LINE FRIENDS at Yorkdale will attract local shoppers and tourists alike for a fun shopping experience. Customers and newcomers to the brand looking for an online shopping experience with fast and free shipping can shop their favourite LINE FRIENDS characters at sukoshimart.com.

About LINE FRIENDS

LINE FRIENDS is a global character brand that originally started from BROWN & FRIENDS, created for use as stickers for the leading mobile messenger app LINE and its 200 million active users worldwide. Taking a step further, the company has emerged as a global creative studio by offering diversified content based on its wide array of Intellectual Property (IP)s including 'BT21', characters created together with global boy band BTS. LINE FRIENDS is also expanding its IP based business by partnering with various media and game companies such as Netflix, featuring in the original animated series, SUPERCELL's 'Brawl Stars' and NEXON's 'KartRider'. LINE FRIENDS has also collaborated with a number of renowned brands including Bang&Olufsen, Converse, LAMY, and Leica, all aligned with the company's philosophy and value to release premium character products. LINE FRIENDS has operated more than 250 stores in a total of 14 markets in trend-leading cities such as New York, LA, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai. Since it became an independent company in January 2015, LINE FRIENDS continues to win the hearts of Millennials and Gen. Z worldwide through interactive digital communication and differentiated brand experience across multiple retail touch-points including its online sales platforms.

For more information, please visit www.LINEFRIENDS.com.

About Sukoshi Mart

Since its establishment in 2018, Sukoshi Mart has been Canada's destination for the best Korean and Japanese products. What started as a small shop in Toronto has grown into an expansive community across Canada and the United States. With two locations in the Greater Toronto Area, Sukoshi Mart offers a wide assortment of Korean beauty, Japanese lifestyle, and yummy snacks. Customers can also shop through the SUKOSHI website, sukoshimart.com, which aims to become an online source for trending Korean/Japanese brands in North America.

For further information, please contact our media team at: press@sukoshimart.com

To stay up to date with PLAY LINE FRIEND's official launch date in Toronto and exclusive perks, sign up now on sukoshimart.com to be notified!