Rakuten Mobile announces full-scale commercial launch

Tokyo, April 8, 2020 – Rakuten Mobile, Inc. today announced the full-scale commercial launch of its mobile carrier service. Alongside this announcement, the company also unveiled the enhanced “Rakuten UN-LIMIT 2.0” plan, its unlimited mobile service plan available for the monthly fee of 2,980 yen. In light of growing data demands spurred by the recent expansion of telework and online education needs, the upgraded Rakuten UN-LIMIT 2.0 plan offers customers 5GB of data per month when roaming in domestic partner areas and increases the maximum data transmission speed in these partner areas after using up the allocated 5GB to 1Mbps. Compared to the 2GB of domestic partner area data roaming and maximum 128kbps offered by the previous version of the Rakuten UN-LIMIT plan, this increase is designed to better serve customers and meet the growing demand for mobile services. The maximum 1Mbps data speed after the allotted roaming data is used up will be available from April 8, with the 5GB of roaming data becoming available from April 22, for all Rakuten UN-LIMIT customers.

The Rakuten UN-LIMIT service plan launched today offers customers unlimited data use within Rakuten network areas and unlimited domestic calls with Rakuten Link, the communication app developed by Rakuten, for a monthly fee of 2,980 yen*1, *2. Advance applications for the service plan began on March 3, with full-scale service launching on April 8, 2020*3. A campaign is also underway offering 3 million customers who sign up for the program the first year of service free of charge*4. To commemorate the release of the new version 2.0 of the Rakuten UN-LIMIT service plan, Rakuten Mobile is also offering a special Rakuten Mini campaign which offers 5,000 Rakuten Points back when purchasing a Rakuten Mini with a new subscription online or in Rakuten Mobile stores*5, available from 9:00 a.m. online and when stores open on April 8.

Rakuten Mobile has developed the world’s first fully virtualized mobile network*6. This network architecture allows for substantial reductions in capital investment and operation costs, enabling the operator to pass on these savings to customers through this simple and affordable service plan. Rakuten Mobile aims to offer comprehensive communications services combining flexible service plans and cutting-edge technology, while leveraging synergies with the Rakuten Ecosystem and Rakuten Points loyalty program, to continue to improve services for customers.

Mickey Mikitani, Chairman and CEO of Rakuten, Inc., and Representative Director, Chairman and CEO of Rakuten Mobile, Inc. commented:

“With today’s full-scale commercial launch of Rakuten Mobile, I am very proud and excited to bring our customers the enhanced Rakuten UN-LIMIT 2.0 service plan. This will offer our customers access to roaming in Japan with up to 5GB of data, up from the 2GB we announced last month, and, if they exhaust that data, offer them unlimited access to 1Mbps data transmission speeds, up from 128kbps.

Japan is the first country in the world to offer a mobile service through a fully virtualized mobile network. By offering significant savings to our customers with a low-priced and convenient service, we aim to reduce the household cost of mobile services and encourage consumer spending, contributing to the overall health of Japan’s national economy.

With the Rakuten Group’s combined strengths of the Rakuten Ecosystem and membership, we aim to provide our customers with a mobile service unmatched by any other. 

*1 Unlimited when connected to Rakuten Mobile’s base stations. Subscribers can confirm which area the data they are using is from via the My Rakuten Mobile home screen.
*2 Calls to connecting services from other companies that start with numbers such as 0180 or 0570, as well as some calls to 188 special numbers will incur charges.
*3 Please see the following site for more details about the Rakuten UN-LIMIT service plan:
https://network.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/fee/un-limit/ (Japanese only)
*4 Limited to one contract and one application per customer. The number of eligible customers may change depending on the number of applications.
*5 Starting April 2, a number of Rakuten Mobile stores have been temporarily closed as part of measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. For more information about store operations, please check the following site: https://network.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/shop/ (Japanese only)
*6 For a large scale commercial mobile network (as of October 1, 2019). Research: Stella Associa