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/
In addition to shining a spotlight on Japanese design, the presentation marked the "long-awaited comeback" after the pandemic of Asian representatives and buyers at Paris Fashion Week and underlined a broader strategy that has been brewing for several years: the union of e-commerce giant Rakuten with Tokyo Fashion Week to promote the Japanese fashion and design industry abroad.
Today, we have a large ecosystem and database in Japan, where the number of registered users is already close to the total population," Ryo Matsumura, one of the company's top executives, told FashionNetwork.com.
A graduate of Keio University and with a master's degree in finance from the University of London, he joined the Rakuten Group, Inc. in 2013. Since then, he has held various senior positions and is currently vice president of the trading company, overseeing Rakuten Ichiba and Rakuten Fashion, among other businesses. In 2022, he was also appointed managing executive officer of the Rakuten Group.
Although the company does not disclose the exact weight of each product category, globally, the Rakuten Ichiba online shopping mall carries 57,000 merchants and sells approximately 390 million items, including consumer goods, fashion, cosmetics and home décor. In 2022, the group's gross merchandise sales amounted to 5.6 trillion yen (39.964 billion euros).
"In e-commerce, fashion has become our biggest category," the executive said of the division launched in 2012 with the aim of offering Japanese and international fashion brands. In 2020, the rise of local brand representation on the platform prompted the launch of the Rakuten Luxury category, which was joined a few months later by the "Designers & International" space. Last year, the Japanese giant also launched Rakuten Cosmetics.
https://ww.fashionnetwork.com/news/...se-design-in-paris,1497400.html
FEBRUARY 10, 2023
https://dtwa.tmforum.org/...en-mobile-on-standing-out-from-the-crowd/
NEWS PROVIDED BY Allied Analytics LLP
March 16, 2023, 20:03 GMT
The global mobile VoIP market was valued at USD 49.2 billion in 2021, and is projected to reach USD 327.5 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 21.1% from 2022 to 2031.
https://www.einpresswire.com/article/622645914/...kuten-facebook-zoom
Closed in Delivery: 14 Companies
Closed: 8 Companies
Proposing: 28 Companies
Qualifying: 12 Companies
Prospecting: 16 Companies
Rakuten Symphony recently estimated its Open RAN pipeline is worth around $2B (half of the total pipeline). We don’t know the size of the European component. However, the company recently reported that nearly half of the # (not value) of prospecting clients (for RAN and non-RAN) are located in Europe per the chart below.
https://www.delloro.com/mwc-2023-ran-market-key-takeaways/
MEFFYS 2023 Winners announced in Barcelona
By MEFMarch 3, 2023Event, Meffys
The winners of the prestigious MEFFYs Awards were announced this week at the beautiful Casa Llotja de Mar in central Barcelona. The long-running industry awards series celebrate innovation, creativity and ingenuity in the Mobile Ecosystem; a chance to recognise, applaud and showcase those individuals and companies that have made a significant difference in 2022 across MEFs core ecosystems.
Mobile Payments
Winner: Rakuten Viber – Viber Pay
Rakuten Viber Pay is the latest innovation from Rakuten Viber, allowing users to send and receive money in Viber as easily as they send a message.
Focussed on providing a seamless and fast user experience, new Viber Pay wallets can be created in less than 2 minutes. Additionally, all payments are encrypted and secured with licensed partners and, unlike competitor banking apps, can be made at zero cost to the user.
https://mobileecosystemforum.com/2023/03/03/...nnounced-in-barcelona/
BY BERNIE CAHILES-MAGKILAT
Mar 19, 2023 11:56 AM
Messaging apps are expected to make more traction this year with majority of business that started via messaging apps during the pandemic plan to continue doing so for a more personalized and targeted form of marketing with their clients, a new study revealed.
Rakuten Viber, one of leading messaging apps, said recent studies show that consumers spend on average 2.5 hours on messaging apps daily. The same studies also found that the younger generation, 16-24-year-olds, spends nearly 3 hours on messaging apps every day.
More and more people are turning to messengers to communicate with friends, family, and colleagues. Subsequently, messaging is already a significant driving force in brand communication as marketers connect with customers where customers are.
https://mb.com.ph/2023/3/19/...ing-apps-to-drive-businesses-this-year
Rakuten US sent this email to their subscribers on March 19, 2023.
https://deal.town/rakuten-us/...e-shopping-trip-is-complete-P3MEMUUCL
Posted by AFP RELAXNEWS on 15TH MARCH 2023
https://runwaymagazines.com/rakuten-fashion-week-tokyo-2023/
March 1, 2023, Tokyo, Japan The three plans are: 1,980 yen (2,178 yen including tax) for monthly data up to 3GB, 2,380 yen (2,618 yen including tax) for up to 5GB and 2,780 yen (3,058 yen including tax) for up to 30GB.
Tokyu Corporation
“We saw Rakuten Mobile taking on some bold new challenges with its consumer services and with expectations of more great things, some of our departments signed up for the Rakuten Mobile Business Plan. We were able to choose the amount of data we needed for our plan and we now have free calls using the app. On top of that, it is great to be able to use 5G services with no extra charge. Another reason for our decision was that we can get everything done on my Rakuten Mobile Office, from checking on usage to adding extra lines and downloading bills.”
Yamazaki Baking Co., Ltd.
“We installed Rakuten Mobile in our plant worker dormitory. We were really attracted by this inexpensive plan offering a large volume of data, so once we confirmed the strength of the signal, we decided to sign up. Since then, we have been using the service without any issues, including data speeds, and our staff could not be happier.”
https://corp.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/english/news/press/2023/0301_01/
Feb 22, 2023 | Larisa Redins
“We are young, but we are making extremely healthy revenue growth,” says Tareq Amin, the executive vice president of Rakuten Symphony, on the company’s Q4 2022 earnings call. “If you look at the last six quarters since our establishment, we have achieved more than $0.5 billion in total revenue, and for fiscal year 2022, our total revenue was $476 million.”
Rakuten’s total potential revenue opportunities stand at over $4 billion in 2023. More specifically, they see unprecedented demand in three key verticals: Open RAN, cloud and efficient operations.
As a result, according to the company, Rakuten claims to be the largest edge platform provider in terms of workloads deployed. The company also claims that its Open RAN architecture is the only alternative for the global deployment of legacy platforms.
“With over 300,000 sales per year globally, it officially makes Rakuten the world’s largest Open RAN software platform provider,” said Amin. “This is very, very healthy to see for us as far as opportunities are concerned.”
In addition, Rakuten says it’s aiming to become a platform connectivity player equivalent to Amazon Web Services when it launched. To achieve this, the company wants to increase its revenue by 40% in 2023 and continue expanding its customer base.
https://www.edgeir.com/...s-success-with-open-ran-technology-20230222
March 20, 2023
Rakuten STAY announced the openings of two new vacation rental properties in Japan, Rakuten STAY VILLA Nasu and Rakuten STAY VILLA Kamogawa. The facilities, both located in popular tourist destinations with good transport links, offer an exclusive experience, boasting features such as the chance to try out a selection of popular items available from Rakuten Ichiba and spacious bathrooms that use hot spring water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdvJCdIV_Js
Posted by Madalina Mariaa March 5, 2023
https://techgameworld.com/...ovies-to-watch-on-rakuten-tv-march-2023/
Rakuten’s initial plan for mobile had been a 7-year buildout. Instead, Rakuten accelerated that plan, based on a cloud-native and open vision, resulting in a higher rate of spend over a shorter period. Its mobile strategy now enters “phase 2” – establishing the profit structure of the business now that the buildout is largely complete with 98%+ coverage. Rakuten Mobile’s “phase 3” will be accelerating customer acquisition (massively increasing its rivals’ churn) to become Japan’s #1 mobile service provider.
The majority of Rakuten Mobile’s 4G coverage is compete – around 15% of base stations (8,000 out of a target of 60,000+) remain to be built, by the end of 2023. During 2023, Rakuten will see a “drastic” decline in its cost base (an improvement estimated at around $110m per month).
Driving down roaming traffic (today around 4.2%) is a key objective in order to eliminate roaming costs.
Rakuten estimates that is has delivered more-or-less nationwide population coverage at just 20% of the capex of existing mobile operators in Japan.
As we have highlighted before, Rakuten draws attention to its cost advantage for heavy data users. A network that scales allows Rakuten to positively encourage data-hungry subscribers onto its network. And better-connected subscribers are better connected to everything else.
The average Rakuten users uses 18.4GB/month, more than twice the average for users of other networks.
ARPU is also steadily increasing at around $19/month.
Profitability improvements are in part down to decreased roaming charges.
Enterprise is an increasingly important segment. The Rakuten Mobile Business Plan was launched in Jan 2023, with 600+ customers.
Rakuten Mobile also plans to launch high-speed internet services using its fiber backbone.
https://appledoreresearch.com/2023/02/14/rakuten-group-results-fy2022/
Rakuten’s initial plan for mobile had been a 7-year buildout. Instead, Rakuten accelerated that plan, based on a cloud-native and open vision, resulting in a higher rate of spend over a shorter period. Its mobile strategy now enters “phase 2” – establishing the profit structure of the business now that the buildout is largely complete with 98%+ coverage. Rakuten Mobile’s “phase 3” will be accelerating customer acquisition (massively increasing its rivals’ churn) to become Japan’s #1 mobile service provider.
The majority of Rakuten Mobile’s 4G coverage is compete – around 15% of base stations (8,000 out of a target of 60,000+) remain to be built, by the end of 2023. During 2023, Rakuten will see a “drastic” decline in its cost base (an improvement estimated at around $110m per month).
Driving down roaming traffic (today around 4.2%) is a key objective in order to eliminate roaming costs.
Rakuten estimates that is has delivered more-or-less nationwide population coverage at just 20% of the capex of existing mobile operators in Japan.
As we have highlighted before, Rakuten draws attention to its cost advantage for heavy data users. A network that scales allows Rakuten to positively encourage data-hungry subscribers onto its network. And better-connected subscribers are better connected to everything else.
The average Rakuten users uses 18.4GB/month, more than twice the average for users of other networks.
ARPU is also steadily increasing at around $19/month.
Profitability improvements are in part down to decreased roaming charges.
Enterprise is an increasingly important segment. The Rakuten Mobile Business Plan was launched in Jan 2023, with 600+ customers.
Rakuten Mobile also plans to launch high-speed internet services using its fiber backbone.
https://appledoreresearch.com/2023/02/14/rakuten-group-results-fy2022/
Von Rakuten Advertising 2 March 2023
Rakuten Advertising freut sich, die detaillierte Agenda für das innovative Networking-Event, Partner Up+ in München, vorzustellen. Am 23. März 2023 begrüßen wir in der Macherei in München herausragende Speaker, von denen Sie erfahren, wie Sie bahnbrechende Ergebnisse bei der Umsetzung Ihrer Online-Strategie erzielen, weiter als Ihre Konkurrenten denken und diese übertreffen sowie hochwertige und erfolgreiche Partnerschaften gründen oder vertiefen? Und das ist noch nicht alles, denn Partner Up+ verbindet strategischen Inhalt mit Premium-Networking.
Wir freuen uns sehr, als Keynote-Speaker Ingo Kamps und Christina Hofer, Münchner Online Rebels GmbH, mit an Bord zu haben. Die beiden sprechen über „Commerce Content – Das digitale Verkaufsgespräch“: Bei vielen Unternehmen sind der Upper Funnel und der Lower Funnel zum großen Teil ausoptimiert. Echte Kaufentscheidungen werden allerdings im Midfunnel getroffen – dort wird das digitale Verkaufsgespräch geführt. Sind die Advertiser hier nicht präsent, verschenken sie echtes Neukundenpotenzial. Durch Commerce Content partizipieren Unternehmen im Kaufentscheidungsprozess des Kunden. Somit können sie ihre Brand und die für den potenziellen Kunden relevanten Produkte gezielt vermarkten.
Anschließend diskutieren drei unserer Top-Advertiser (Niki Harrold von Rad Power Bikes, Kimberley Bechinie von Lautsprecher Teufel und Konstantin Lahmann von Sixt) in einer Panel-Diskussion, wie sie den aktuellen Herausforderungen und Trends im e-Commerce begegnen.
Neue Markt-Trends werden dann von einigen unserer Top-Publishern näher beleuchtet. Michael Elschenbroich von stylink spricht unter anderem über Micro-Influencer-Marketing im Performance-Kanal – stylink ist Spezialist im Influencer-Marketing und verbindet Micro-Influencer mit Marken und Retailern. Cynthia Kempe von COUPONS:DE informiert über Gutscheinpublisher mit grünem Gewissen – auf ihrem Portal Grüne Gutscheine finden die Nutzer handgeprüfte Gutscheine, wobei Anbieter mit starkem ökologischem Bewusstsein im Vordergrund stehen; für Partner ein positiver Imagetransfer, da der Nutzer gleichzeitig sparen und einen Beitrag zum Umweltschutz leisten kann. Marvin Graf von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff wird dann noch einen Einblick in den Bereich Commerce Content in den verschiedenen Märkten geben.
Der zweite Teil des Nachmittags steht danach ganz im Zeichen des Networkings. Ob ganz informell in der Kaffeepause oder bei den After-Work-Drinks oder bei Meetings an vorab per Networking-App vereinbarten Partner-Networkling-Tischen – dies ist der richtige Platz für Sie, wenn Sie Partnerschaften knüpfen oder vertiefen möchten oder an Roundtables mit anderen Interessierten über bestimmte Themen im Bereich Affiliate-Marketing diskutieren möchten.
Sie sind noch nicht für Partner Up+ registriert? Dann wird es höchste Zeit: Registrieren Sie sich jetzt für DAS Event 2023 – und werfen Sie auch gerne einen Blick in unsere Sponsorship-Broschüre, wenn Sie daran interessiert sind, bei Partner Up+ bestmöglich präsent zu sein. Wählen Sie eine der vielen Sponsoring-Möglichkeiten oder lassen Sie sich von unserem Team ein Paket maßschneidern. Wir möchten, dass Sie sich mit unserer Hilfe von anderen abheben und bestmögliche Ergebnisse erzielen.
https://blog.rakutenadvertising.com/de-de/events/...eaker-partner-up/
Japan B2C Ecommerce Market Report 2023-2028
B2C Ecommerce market in Japan is expected to grow by 8.49% on annual basis to reach US$240.6 billion in 2023. The Medium to long-term growth story of B2C Ecommerce industry in Japan promises to be attractive.
The B2C Ecommerce is expected to grow steadily over the forecast period, recording a CAGR of 7.31% during 2023-2027. The country's B2C Ecommerce Gross Merchandise Value will increase from US$221.7 billion in 2022 to reach US$319.0 billion by 2027.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/...yak-Line-Taxi.html
https://futurenetworld.net/service-assurance-ai/...hitecture/2023/03/
Japan's Rakuten plans IPO of bank unit, offering seen at $755 mln
Mar 22, 2023 at 4:32 am GMT
TOKYO, March 22 (Reuters) -Japan's Rakuten Group Inc 4755.T plans an initial public offering (IPO) of its banking arm as early as April, according to two people, as the e-commerce giant sees sufficient market demand even amid global financial turmoil.
Rakuten will sell some of its stake in the offering and Rakuten Bank will issue new shares, for a total of around 100 billion yen ($755 million), the people said.
The deal is expected to value the bank, Japan's largest online lender by number of accounts, at around 300 billion yen ($2.3 billion), one of the people said.
https://www.xm.com/research/markets/allNews/...5-mln-sources-53505671
Bloomberg) -- An initial public offering by Rakuten Bank Ltd. is set to fetch the company and its parent as much as 116.6 billion yen ($881 million), putting it on track to be Japan’s biggest listing in more than four years.
The banking unit of Rakuten Group Inc. set an indicative band of 1,630 yen to 1,960 yen per share for its Tokyo IPO on Wednesday. The stock will list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on April 21, according to a statement.
Almost 60 million shares are being offered in the IPO, with 16% of them being sold by the lender and 84% by holder Rakuten Group. The offering can be upsized by an over-allotment option of about 4.4 million shares, according to terms of the deal obtained by Bloomberg News.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...nk-seeks-881-million-073830248.html
HARUKI KITAGAWA and SHOKO SAIKI, Nikkei staff writers March 23, 2023 02:57 JST
TOKYO -- Japan's Rakuten Bank will make an initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on April 21, in a sale expected to give it a market capitalization of up to 333.2 billion yen ($2.52 billion) based on the estimated price range.
Billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani's Rakuten Group plans to sell 53.95 million of its shares in the online bank at listing, more than 30% of its holdings, fetching up to 105.7 billion yen. Rakuten Bank will issue 5.55 million new shares.
The IPO will raise cash for Rakuten Group as it racks up debt in order to break into Japan's telecom sector.
The TSE said Wednesday it had approved the IPO on the Prime market. Rakuten Group will maintain parent status with an expected stake of 63%.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/IPO/...up-to-2.5bn-valuation
The listing, first reported by Reuters, will represent a hefty cash boost for Rakuten, an e-commerce giant that for years has struggled with losses from the costly build-out of its mobile phone business. It will also be a test of market demand.
While global bank shares have been whipsawed in recent weeks following the collapse of a number of U.S. regional lenders and the turmoil at Credit Suisse, Japanese banks have so far avoided disastrous hits and are seen as being able to weather the storm.
Rakuten plans to sell 53.95 million existing shares of Rakuten Bank Ltd to both domestic and overseas investors, while the bank plans to issue 5.55 million new shares, according to regulatory filings.
The IPO is likely to total 106.8 billion yen ($807 million), based on the 1,795 yen mid-range of the indicative price. That doesn’t include the greenshoe option of another 4.46 million shares.
The shares are scheduled to be listed on April 21 on the Tokyo exchange’s Prime Market.
Rakuten Bank is Japan’s largest internet bank by number of accounts, with more than 13 million at the end of last year. It is one of a number of fintech companies run by Rakuten aimed at drawing customers into the group ecosystem.
https://nationalpost.com/pmn/technology-pmn/...ng-unit-in-800-mln-ipo
Zusammen dürften es alle vier Fintechs von Rakuten auf mehr als 10 Milliarden bringen, denn Rakuten Card ist mit Sicherheit das wertvollste Fintech.
Somit sind die vier Fintechs allein schon mehr wert als die momentane Marktkapitalisierung von Rakuten.