Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
Look Out Amazon, Here Comes...Rakuten?
Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten announced on Tuesday it is acquiring Ebates for $1 billion.
The acquisition, which Rakuten hinted at last week, is part of the Japanese company’s push to grow its base beyond its domestic market and hopefully, become a global player. Having made some $1.2 billion acquisitions to date along these lines, this is Rakuten’s most ambitious move to date.
However, investors are dubious that the company can absorb yet another foreign acquisition, much less one the size of Ebates, despite Rakuten’s strong cash position.
Then there is the ever-present Amazon, which dominates the e-commerce market in the U.S. Few believe it will falter in the face of Chinese giant Alibaba, much less a Rakuten-Ebates combo.
Rakuten Goes Forth
Not surprisingly, Rakuten says it is undaunted. For starters, it has assembled a very interesting mix of acquisitions. There is messaging app Viber, which it purchased for $900 million in February, the Canadian ebook offering Kobo, Spanish video service Wuaki.tv, Viki, a digital content platform and Buy.com.
Now it has picked up Ebates.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikamorphy/2014/09/...ere-comes-rakuten/
The company is focused on improving profitability and expanding its core business for mid- to long-term financial soundness.
Rakuten Mobile aims to increase ARPU through various strategies, including increased data usage and promotion of services within the ecosystem.
Rakuten is committed to becoming the "Red Hat of the mobile world" and plans to leverage its acquisition of Robin.io to enhance its cloud strategy.
https://za.investing.com/news/...obile-unit-nears-profit-93CH-3154004
Given its 71 percent user penetration rate in the Philippines, it would be hard to find a single Filipino who is not yet a user of the leading communications app Rakuten Viber. This application is one convenient tool for maintaining connections, both in my professional and personal life.
As a leading app in the Philippines, Viber stands out for its reliability, user-friendly features, and ability to bring people together. Just last year the super app reported 106 percent growth in the Philippines owing to new features focused on serving both individual users and businesses.
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2024/05/20/my-daily-app-companion-viber/
Rakuten Music's venture into discovering and nurturing new musical talent culminates in the major debut of Apollo, grand prize winner of their first-ever audition. Find out more about future superstars Apollo and tsuna, including their background and pre-debut songs, and the unique strategy of Rakuten Music to add value to their music-related IPs including collaboration with Rakuten NFT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peC8l5NRqxQ
Mariia Martyrosian, Global PR & Marketing Innovations Director at Rakuten Viber
May 16, 2024
Reducing cart abandonment and boosting sales is much easier with Viber Rich Business Messages. By using personalized offers and reminders, time-sensitive updates, and remarketing tactics, businesses can engage customers, recover lost sales, and increase revenue. With a large user base and high engagement rates, Rakuten Viber provides a wide reach and the right tools for maximum impact. By optimizing campaigns using data-driven insights in real time, businesses can enhance their cart recovery tactics and achieve even better results.
Don't miss the chance to re-engage customers and maximize revenue. Contact our team today, and we’ll help you implement effective cart abandonment solutions with Rakuten Viber.
https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/...-business-messages/
Appledore Research 2024
https://8924028.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/...20Note%25200224.pdf
Rakuten Symphony hat bereits einige Erfolge bei der Neuausrichtung seines OSS-Portfolios erzielt. Durch die Nutzung von KI und Automatisierung zur Vereinfachung von Betriebsprozessen konnte das Unternehmen effizientere Abläufe erreichen. Rahul Atri, der Leiter des OSS bei Rakuten Symphony, ist zuversichtlich, dass Telcos in Zukunft kein eigenständiges OSS mehr benötigen werden.
Bisher gibt es keine spezifischen Bedenken oder Kritikpunkte zur Neuausrichtung des OSS-Portfolios bei Rakuten Symphony. Die Branche reagiert positiv auf die Nutzung von KI und Automatisierung zur Vereinfachung von Betriebsprozessen.
I believe that EBITDA is a useful indicator for evaluating the cash flow generation ability of the Rakuten Group's.
EBITDA (Calculated by adding depreciation and amortization expenses, etc. to Non-GAAP operating income) in millions of Yen
Three months ended March 31, 2024: 52,766
Three months ended March 31, 2023: 3,500
May 22, 2024
Japan's Rakuten Group is partnering with eBay to test U.S. demand for used Japanese fashion goods, made all the cheaper with the yen trading near a 34-year low.
The tie-up, which started on May 8 with just seven vendors on Rakuten's second-hand goods unit Rakuma, aims to capitalise on the currency effect and also a move toward bargain hunting as cost-of-living pressures around the world crimp spending.
In exchange for commissions on sales, eBay lists Rakuma's selected goods for sale on its site, while a Rakuten-contracted vendor handles shipping and customer service in the U.S.
After the U.S., eBay's next biggest markets are Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Germany, and its "ultimate goal" would be to expand Rakuma offerings to those countries, said Naoki Kitamura, eBay Japan's head of category management.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...en-ebay-team-test-us-074305121.html
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2024/0514_01.html
Thu, May 23, 2024
Users of eBay's US site will be able to purchase some products listed on the Rakuma official shop. The focus is initially on used fashion and accessories.
Reuters quoted Rakuma general manager Kenichiro Hasegawa: "Because of the use of cases and covers ... these second-hand goods are in quite good shape. To say something is 'used in Japan' gives some immediate value."
Rakuten Rakuma believes that listing on eBay will enable it to expand its sales channels and promote overseas sales for store operators.
Rakuten has yet to set a sales target for the venture, but success with the initial vendors could lead to an expansion to include all Rakuma shops and users on eBay.
According to eBay Japan category management head Naoki Kitamura, the company aims to broaden the availability of Rakuma's offerings to Canada, Australia, the UK and Germany.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...ay-trial-demand-used-124909039.html
22 May 2024
Japan’s Rakuten Mobile built an Open RAN network when the standards body, the O-RAN Alliance, was just in its infancy. More development of standards is needed to encourage Open RAN adoption, especially for operators of brownfield networks, according to Rahul Atri, Managing Director and President of OSS at Rakuten Symphony.
“We are glad that standards are coming through now and people are paying more attention, especially the big boys,” said Atri. “Standards open the opportunity for Rakuten and for the larger community to share capabilities. We believe that standards are a starting point. When we set up the Rakuten network in 2018, we had to go forward and start solving our problems. Now, we are converting those capabilities into platforms and applications which are more aligned to the Open RAN standards.”
Rakuten Symphony partners with Open RAN software vendor AirHop, and uses its apps on the Rakuten Symphony Symworld marketplace. The firm plans to integrate apps from other such partners into its RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC).
Only a handful of commercial operators have greenfield open RAN networks, which means that Rakuten Symphony’s client base will be largely brownfield – another reason why standards are so important to the firm, Atri said.
“It’s also more important when you’re a brownfield to go with standards. For example, if there are no standards, the likes of Nokia and Ericsson will want to charge extra to the brownfield customers for integration. So, the standards are a way to make everyone agree to certain level of compatibility integration, so that all the people can come online and solve a business problem.”
https://rethinkresearch.biz/articles/...please-says-rakuten-symphony/
https://assets-global.website-files.com/...epaper_1.pdf?_fsi=M6B6whBJ
Norbert Gehrke
Rakuten’s FinTech segment is demonstrating remarkable growth and profitability, driven by a focus on customer acquisition, strategic partnerships, and innovative service offerings. The company’s ambitious plans for 2024, including the strategic reorganization and ongoing efforts to enhance payment services, suggest a commitment to continued success in the dynamic FinTech landscape.
https://medium.com/tokyo-fintech/...growth-and-expansion-be5432ee4ffe
By Mehran Hadipour
VP - BD & Tech Alliances Rakuten Symphony
May 20, 2024
I recently spoke with Eric Van Vliet, Dell Technologies’ Director for Telecom Market Development, EMEA, about the partnership between Dell and Rakuten Symphony.
Great synergy and focus exist between the two companies: Dell provides high-performance infrastructure and Rakuten Symphony brings cloud and telecom software innovations.
For Rakuten Symphony, this partnership is important because high-performance infrastructure is a big part of how we deliver our software solutions to operators, especially with Open RAN where there are dependencies on acceleration, hardware set up and so on.
Having launched its telecom infrastructure business in 2020, Dell Technologies has seen success in the market due to its emphasis on bringing innovation to operators. The relationship with Rakuten Symphony brings innovative cloud solutions that emphasize automation and AI for dramatic improvements in efficiency and management, and reduction in costs.
“Historically, if we’re looking at the telecom industry due to its critical nature to every country and every society it’s always difficult to innovate because with new innovation comes risk. But when society has evolved, and we saw this with 4G and 5G, there’s more and more demand. Now, if we’re looking at coming together as an ecosystem, it’s all about moving things forward, accelerating progress and helping the telecom service providers to take that next step.”
- Eric Van Vliet, Director for Telecom Market Development, EMEA, Dell Technologies
Rakuten Symphony is part of Dell’s Open Telecom Ecosystem Lab (OTEL) which offers a place where Dell, Rakuten Symphony and other ecosystem members can validate and certify their applications on Dell hardware. The OTEL is an important link in validating virtualized / containerized applications as well as Open RAN solutions that need integration.
Not limited to telecom
The innovation isn’t limited to telecom applications as we’ve also helped enterprises with processing analytics data at the edge. It’s a good example of collaboration as Dell was exploring edge computing and Rakuten Symphony was investigating analytics solutions. When both companies brought their work together a brand-new solution emerged.
Dell has integrated our Rakuten Cloud-Native Platform, Cloud-Native Orchestrator and Cloud-Native Storage into the Dell Validated Design for Analytics – Data Lakehouse. This design creates edge servers that can ingest large amounts of data and accommodate large data models. I co-authored a white paper on this solution with Dell and Intel.
Eric reminded us that operators and companies in other industries are facing a new environment with more competition, higher demand and a need to move faster to keep up with the expectations of customers. By working together, Dell and Rakuten Symphony can deliver the innovation that operators and enterprises need to navigate this new reality.
https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...elecom-and-edge-cloud-innovation