Rakuten Recipe Launches iPhone App

TOKYO, July 13, 2011 – Rakuten, Inc. (“Rakuten”, JASDAQ: 4755) today announced the launch of an iPhone app for its “Rakuten Recipe” website for browsing and submitting recipes online.  

By downloading the free iPhone app (hereafter, “Smartphone”), users are able to upload cooking instructions and photos of original recipes via their Smartphone onto Rakuten Recipe. Until now, there has been no optimized page for recipe submission via a Smartphone and the submission process was time consuming and inconvenient. With the new app, users can easily submit their recipes to Rakuten Recipe from their Smartphone at anytime, even as they cook. Furthermore, users are rewarded with 50 Rakuten Super Points for each recipe submission, providing a new avenue for collection points for the Company’s loyalty rewards program.

In conjunction with the launch of the app, Rakuten Recipe has been optimized for Smartphone browsing, setting it apart from the PC version. The “Rakuten Recipe Top Page,” “Popular Recipe Search,” “I Made It Report (feedback on the recipe),” “My Page Login”, and “New Recipes” functions have been optimized for Smartphones with enhanced accessibility, enabling smoother Smartphone-based browsing and search functions. Users can also collect Rakuten Super Points by making submissions to the “I Made It Report” page, earning 10 points for each submission.

Rakuten plans to launch an Android app in late July.

Rakuten Recipe services were originally launched in October 2010. The system of awarding users with 50 Rakuten Super Points for each original recipe submission has proven to be a major success, with over 200,000 recipes submissions since its launch only nine months ago (as of July 13, 2011).

Going forward, Rakuten will continue to expand the services and functions of Rakuten Recipe to further enhance user satisfaction.