San Francisco, California and Tokyo, Japan- Mapbox and Yahoo Japan Corporation (hereafter referred to as “Yahoo! JAPAN”) today announce at SoftBank World that they are collaborating to transform the digital experience of maps in Japan, and will begin integrating and launching new maps and personalized location experiences across Yahoo! JAPAN internet properties and mobile apps beginning this Autumn.
Yahoo! JAPAN offers more than 100 services – including search, news, weather, shopping and auctions – to smartphone and PC users. In the Japanese iOS app store, apps from Yahoo! JAPAN occupy three of the top five spots in navigation, two of the top five spots in weather, two of the top seven spots in news, and three of the top 50 spots overall. On Android, the company has five of the top 50 apps in the app store.（※）
Through this collaboration, Mapbox will power the maps across all of Yahoo! JAPAN’s mobile and online apps. With its living AI map continuously updated with data from 14 billion anonymous, aggregated sensor readings every day, Mapbox provides developers with the building blocks that enable a high degree of customization. The teams will work closely together to create new experiences tailored to the needs of Japanese users.
“As the most visited destination in Japan, we need to provide the best, most performant map to our users. Integrating with live location platform Mapbox will help us deliver new and customized features for our user base. We pride ourselves on making daily improvements to our services, and using live location from AI-powered, continuously updated maps will allow us to bring more tailored personalized products and experiences to users,” said Keita Hakoda, Unit Manager of Yahoo JAPAN’s Local Services.
With its continually updated living map, Mapbox will be powering Yahoo! JAPAN’s delivery of next level personal, localized services online and on mobile apps. The live location platform will help Yahoo! JAPAN deliver advanced Maps for consumers.
Yahoo! Weather powered by Mapbox will deliver accurate, up-to-date weather visualizations. Mapbox brings expertise and experience in weather mapping to Yahoo! JAPAN.
“To be working with the leader in consumer apps with Japan’s largest users, and the most popular online destination is tremendous. We are excited to be partnering with the Yahoo! JAPAN team to deliver next-level maps for consumer apps and services including weather in the country,” commented Mapbox CEO Eric Gundersen.
Mapbox powers more than 45,000 applications globally, reaching more than 640 million monthly active users. Every day these devices generate 14 billion anonymous, aggregated sensor readings that are used to deliver precise traffic data and instantly ship over 100,000 daily changes to maps on any connected device.
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About Mapbox
Mapbox is the live location platform for over 1.6 million developers. Mapbox provides a global map, real-time traffic, location search and navigation via our APIs and SDKs. Our services power industry leaders, including CNN, Facebook, IBM, Instacart, Lonely Planet, Porsche, Snapchat, Tableau, The Weather Channel, and Yahoo! JAPAN. Mapbox is the foundation for other platforms, letting enterprises analyze their data, drone companies publish flyovers, friends find each other, real estate sites visualize properties, satellite companies process cloud-free imagery, and insurance companies track assets. Founded in 2010, Mapbox has offices in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Helsinki, Minsk and Shanghai. Learn more at Mapbox.com and follow our blog (blog.mapbox.com). Or follow us on Twitter @Mapbox.
About Yahoo! JAPAN
Yahoo! JAPAN was established in January 1996 to provide online information search services in Japan. In addition to its portal site “Yahoo! JAPAN”, the company has offered more than 100 services—including search, news, weather, shopping and auctions—to smartphone and PC users. Firmly established as a “problem-solving engine,” the company pursues initiatives to solve the problems of people and society by leveraging the power of information technology.
