SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP), the company that connects consumers with great local businesses, today announced it has surpassed 100 million cumulative reviews contributed since inception. This milestone will be celebrated by the passionate Yelp community spanning more than 30 countries across five continents and, thanks to Yelp’s mobile translation feature, in 18 different languages.
“For nearly twelve years, consumers have been coming to Yelp to find great local businesses,” said Jeremy Stoppelman, Co-Founder and CEO of Yelp. “We attribute much of our success to the passionate Yelp communities around the globe. These folks meet both on and offline, and share their opinions on Yelp, helping others in their communities make informed spending decisions.”
Mobile-Minded Yelpers
The first Yelp review written on mobile was made on 12/20/10 by Chad S in Iowa City, IA. In Q4 2015, Yelpers contributed a mobile review every 2.5 seconds. Also, 70% of searches on Yelp came from mobile devices across the globe and more than 56% of Yelp content (reviews and photos) was generated on mobile devices. Yelp also saw 86 million** average monthly mobile unique visitors in Q4 2015. From 2014 to 2015, there was a 66% increase in the number of reviews submitted via mobile. By 2015, more than 1.5 million businesses had more than 50% of their reviews coming in from mobile.
Celebrating the Yelp Community
The first Yelp review was contributed by Jon B. in October of 2004 for Kabuki Springs & Spa in San Francisco, CA. Nearly twelve years later, the 100 millionth Yelp review was contributed by Yelp Elite Evelyn K. for Crocheron Park, a public park in Bayside, NY. Throughout the life of Yelp, thriving communities have been established in more than 120 cities around the globe, but few Yelpers are more prolific than Shila B., a Yelp Elite in Vancouver, Canada who has written more than 8,000 reviews to date. In total, Yelpers have written roughly 10 billion words, which would take one person 146 years to read aloud. Yelpers have crowned Bottega Louie, a restaurant and bakery in Los Angeles, California the most popular and most photogenic, contributing more than 12,000 reviews and 17,000 photos to the business’ page.
Helping Small Businesses Win
Of the 100 million reviews on Yelp, approximately 80% are 3 stars or higher, which means the majority of people come to Yelp to share good to great experiences with local businesses. In fact, the 2,371 businesses on Yelp with more than 1,000 reviews have an average rating of 4 stars. In our time, we’ve found that Yelp works best when both consumers and business owners are engaged. Kudos to Get Your Move On in Phoenix, Arizona for being the most responsive business on Yelp, responding publicly or privately to 100% of reviews! Beyond free response tools, Yelp offers small businesses many ways to connect with consumers, including through Yelp Eat24 and Yelp SeatMe. To date, 109 million people have been seated by Yelp SeatMe, and users have ordered nearly 12 million pizzas through Yelp Eat24.
About Yelp
Yelp Inc. (http://www.yelp.com) connects people with great local businesses. Yelp was founded in San Francisco in July 2004. Since then, Yelp communities have taken hold in major metros across more than 30 countries. Approximately 20 million unique devices1 accessed Yelp via the Yelp app, approximately 75 million unique visitors visited Yelp via desktop computer2 and approximately 86 million unique visitors visited Yelp via mobile website3 on a monthly average basis during the fourth quarter of 2015. By the end of the same quarter, Yelpers had written approximately 95 million rich, local reviews, making Yelp the leading local guide for real word-of-mouth on everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and dentists.
1 Calculated as the number of unique devices accessing the app on a monthly average basis over a given three-month period, according to internal Yelp logs.
2 Calculated as the number of "users," as measured by Google Analytics, accessing Yelp via desktop computer on an average monthly basis over a given three-month period.
3 Calculated as the number of "users," as measured by Google Analytics, accessing Yelp via mobile website on a monthly average basis over a given three-month period.
