E-commerce giant Rakuten (JSD:4755) recently announced that it has acquired a majority stake in popular coupon website Shareee.jp to the tune of 70 percent of its shares. Shareee will continue to operate its service together with the existing shareholder Hikari Tsushin Inc.
According to Rakuten’s statement, Shareee is Japan’s third largest coupon website in terms of sales, specializing in restaurant and accommodation bookings and relaxation amenities [1]. According to Coupon-JP, coupon site Ponpare still leads the industry with about 1.14 billion yen (about $14 million) in sales for the month of August (see table below).
In the future, Rakuten wants to integrate its Anshin Payment Service and encourage the use of Rakuten Super Points. The company also hopes to “strengthen the coordination” between Shareee and Racoupon, which is its own coupon service which began back in 2010.
Rakuten’s other recent investments include the pickup of Spanish online video service Wuaki.tv back in June, and of course just before that in May was its now famous investment in social pinboard service Pinterest.
source: coupon-jp.com
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Here’s its announcement in Japanese as well as its release in English. ↩
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