Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – American Library Association Annual Meeting – June 18, 2019 – Rakuten OverDrive, the leading ebook and audiobook service for libraries and schools, released data detailing a dramatic increase in reading by K-12 students. Ebook and audiobook reading increased over 240% when students connected their Sora classroom reading app to their local public library versus students solely accessing their school collection. In addition, student time spent reading ebooks and audiobooks nearly doubled since Sora was introduced to K-12 schools in September 2018. More information can be found here.

Schools and libraries experiencing this classroom-initiated reading surge include Berkeley (CA) Public Schools with students accessing the Berkeley Public Library, Liberty School District 53 (MO) students accessing the Mid-Continent Public Library, and Spring Branch ISD (TX) students accessing the Harris County Public Library

https://company.overdrive.com/2019/06/18/...es-students-to-read-more/
 

Chinese Content for Rakuten Viki

San Mateo, CA – June 6, 2019 – Rakuten Viki, the world’s leading, fan-powered video platform and community for global TV – including premium entertainment content from Asia – today announced that they have acquired seven titles from Croton Media, one of the leading content producers in China, to premiere on the Rakuten Viki streaming platform worldwide starting in May.

“This partnership with Croton Media solidifies our reputation as a platform of choice for international fans of Asian TV and entertainment,” said Sarah Kim, SVP of Content and Partnerships at Rakuten Viki. “Our watch time for Chinese content has grown exponentially in the last few years, so we’re excited to answer our global audiences’ growing appetite for more mega-hits from China”

The deal includes exclusive streaming rights for a collection of recent hits, as well as some titles that will be available to stream for the first time in the U.S., including:

https://www.multichannel.com/pr-feed/...-collection-from-croton-media

 

by offering e-books

One of Walmart’s biggest competitors may have cornered the market when it comes to reading books. But the retailer is trying its hand in the e-book buying business.

Walmart announced a new partnership with the launch of Walmart e-books by Rakuten Kobo.

The new partnership will bring customers:

Kobo’s library of more than six million titles.

A $9.99 monthly audiobook subscription.

The ability to purchase digital book cards at brick-and-mortar stores

Access to Kobo eReaders both on Walmart.com and in stores.

https://www.ajc.com/news/national/...ng-books/z1WyNGiAoNyZfy7RHxJefJ/
 

Creating an ecosystem that serves our members is a vision very distinct from the traditional model of a global conglomerate. We are not just a collection of businesses. We are passionate about creating a new, mutually beneficial environment in which our members, our partners and our businesses can all thrive.

https://rakuten.today/blog/consumer-focused-ecosystem.html
 

In 11 June 2019 – Rakuten announced the launch of Rakuten Sports, a new live streaming and video on demand (VOD) sports entertainment platform to expand and deliver sports content to several countries around the world, after eleven countries across the Europe. Starts 14 June, sports fans around the world will able to watch J.League football matches. Sports fans also can watch the original series Iniesta TV, which follows the international soccer star Andrés Iniesta who plays for the Rakuten Group’s J.League soccer club, Vissel Kobe. In addition to football, Rakuten Sports plans to add to its offerings by introducing basketball, table tennis and other sports in the future. Going forward, the sports entertainment platform also plans to introduce new user engagement capabilities that will allow global sports fans to interact with the content while communicating with other sports fans in new, innovative ways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakuten_TV
 

Rakuten Mobile wins big at Leading Lights Awards 2019

https://rakuten.today/blog/rakuten-mobile-leading-lights-awards.html  

Stash vs. Acorns

For both these firms, the micro investing app was a useful tool in growing a user base with Assets Under Management (AUM) that can then be invested into various financial products. When comparing these two micro investing apps, we noticed a key difference in how the investment piece is being handled.

When it comes to Acorn, the savers are offered portfolios that are made up of Blackrock and Vanguard ETFs. This is no different from how some of the popular robo advisors are allocating assets. Should Acorn succeed in amassing enough AUM, perhaps they’ll be attractive for a large robo advisor like Betterment which could simply swallow all the AUM onto their own platform and then have a bolt-on banking operation left over.

https://www.nanalyze.com/2019/03/micro-investing-apps/
 

Cross border payments fintech Currencycloud is offering emerging financial services firms the ability to build a payments infrastructure through its own version of Lego.

Its API based service, which sits in the Amazon Web Services cloud is broken into payments infrastructure modules, each with its own API.

Companies like Azimo, Transferwise were coming to the world, which were early users of the API. “ Customers today include Travelex, Standard Bank of South Africa, Monzo, Starling, and Revolut.  About $1.5bn a month in transactions goes through its platform.

The company also boasts software giant SAP and Google as investors through their venture funds.

Its APIs are available to any company. They can be tried out with no charges unless users want to put them in production.

Currencycloud now has about 200 staff globally, with its headquarters in the UK. It has an office in New York, a dev team in the Ukraine.  It has an EU wide licence, which Lemon said will continue to be the case post-Brexit. It is also licence in every state in the US.

https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/...structure-Fintech-Interview-22  

„We also promote partnerships – such as one going on now between Lyft and Rakuten in the U.S., that allows Rakuten customers to earn cashback on Lyft rides. This encourages our members to experience the extended ecosystem of our services and those offered by our partners.“

https://rakuten.today/blog/consumer-focused-ecosystem.html
 

June 19, 2019
Indigo Books & Music Inc. , the world's first cultural department store for booklovers, is pleased to announce a new audiobook partnership with Rakuten Kobo, a global leader in digital reading. Indigo has expanded their existing eBook and eReader partnership with Kobo to bring Canadians books in even more formats, now including audiobooks.

Indigo Books & Music Inc. is a publicly traded Canadian company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (IDG). Indigo is the world's first Cultural Department Store – a physical and digital meeting place inspired by and filled with books, music, art, ideas, and beautifully designed lifestyle products.

Owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten and headquartered in Toronto, Rakuten Kobo Inc. is one of the world's most innovative eReading services offering more than 6 million eBooks and audiobooks to millions of customers in 190 countries. Kobo offers an eReader for everyone with a wide variety of E Ink devices as well as a free top-ranking eReading and audiobook listening app for iOS® and Android®.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/...k-partnership-840070972.html
 

is to offer incentives

One rationale for a consumer to explore an ecosystem of services is the benefits that they enjoy by doing so. Our ecosystem offers incentives that our members can unlock in one service and use in another. For example, we offer a robust loyalty points program that users can earn in one Rakuten service and spend in another. In Japan, the Rakuten Super Points program has given out more than one trillion yen worth of points to its members. We also promote partnerships – such as one going on now between Lyft and Rakuten in the U.S., that allows Rakuten customers to earn cashback on Lyft rides. This encourages our members to experience the extended ecosystem of our services and those offered by our partners.

https://rakuten.today/blog/consumer-focused-ecosystem.html
 

https://www.onlinemarketplaces.com/articles/...-s-position-and-future  

We’re based in Redwood City, have an office in Jersey City, and a development center in Tel Aviv, with about 270 employeesworldwide. We’ve financed nearly $2 billion to small businesses so far throughout the almost six years that we’ve been in business. We launched our first product four and a half years ago and are very passionate about helping small businesses succeed and thrive.

We’re looking at originating over $1billion more or less this year. So, every year we’ve almost doubled originations. We’re now one of the five largest non-bank SMB financing companies in the U.S., along with some of the companies that you’re familiar with like Square, PayPal and OnDeck.
There’s a clear benefit to scale even in our market. We’ve been more than doubling revenue every year and we already have nine digits in revenue run rate. We’ve been growing over 100 percent year-over-year.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucerogers/2019/03/...ess/#fb8a5b0a6bb2

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/18/...es-fall/#.XRE4V3duIdU  

Hyundai dealers in the United States will offer Lyft Inc rides to customers getting their vehicles serviced at dealerships, the companies said on Tuesday, the latest in a string of partnerships by the ride services company. Dealers who subscribe to Hailer application through CDK Global Inc will be able to offer rides without the customer having to install the Lyft app.

Lyft, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange a couple of months before Uber, has partnered with several companies to offer its services in a bid to gain share in a market dominated by bigger rival Uber Technologies Inc. Last week, the company struck a deal with Agero Inc to provide rides for consumers whose cars need a tow assistance, and has also become the official rideshare of Disney Parks and Resorts. Last month, the company partnered with Google's Waymo to deploy vehicles on Lyft app.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...offer-customers-lyft-185105104.html
 

von Rakuten?

Der Mobilfunk-Bereich von Softbank, dem drittgrößten in Japan, weist momentan eine Marktkapitalisierung von 62,75 Milliarden US-Dollar auf (1 Yen = 0,0093 US-Dollar) auf.

9434:JPTokyo
Softbank Corp
1,409.50JPY
Market Cap
6.747T
52 Week Range
1,176.001,464.00

https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/9434:JP
 

Als Patil kurz nach dem Börsengang im März über Lyft schrieb, sagte er, die Versicherungskosten und die Wachstumsrate des Unternehmens bei den aktuellen Werbeausgaben seien zwei Schlüsselfaktoren, die er bei der Beurteilung berücksichtigte, ob das Unternehmen jemals einen Gewinn erzielen könne. Zu dieser Zeit gab die Firma 30 Prozent ihrer Einnahmen pro Fahrt für Versicherungskosten aus und konnte bloß mit sinkenden Marketingausgaben ein positives Zeichen setzen. Jetzt, so glaubt Patil, habe Lyft "eindeutige Beweise für die Hebelwirkung von Marketing und Versicherungskosten" vorgelegt, einschließlich jüngster Initiativen des Unternehmens wie der verbesserten Schadensabwicklung. "Angesichts der im Vergleich zu Uber kürzeren operativen Historie sind wir der Ansicht, dass Lyft in den nächsten Quartalen reichlich Gelegenheit hat, die Kosten zu senken", schrieb er in der Mitteilung.

https://www.finanzen.net/nachricht/aktien/...-stuft-lyft-hoch-7598141
 

Do small vRAN vendors stand a chance?

Verizon’s announcement about its work with Nokia on vRAN wasn’t surprising because Verizon has historically used Nokia and Ericsson for its network gear. But does this mean that smaller vRAN players like Altiostar Networks (which just scored $114 million in Series C funding), Mavenir (an early vRAN advocate), or JMA Wireless will struggle to score vRAN deals with major operators?

Analyst Iain Gillott, founder of iGR Research, believes there is enough opportunity for both the small and large vendors. In fact, he believes there will be scenarios where multiple vRAN vendors work together with the smaller vendor providing the software solutions and the larger vendors like Nokia and Ericsson providing the network integration and management.

Gillott also noted that the vRAN market encapsulates more than just mobile operators. Enterprises that want to build their own private networks could be potential customers too. I suspect that we will see a combination of deals and acquisitions among the vRAN vendors.

https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/...vendors-will-win-vran-race
 

patients in Arizona

Lyft will offer rides to more people in need of them for health reasons, as it's signed up to become a Medicaid provider in Arizona. Non-emergency medical transportation rides will be covered for eligible patients. Lyft is also working on expanding the program to Medicare services in other states.

The move should help more people get to doctors when they need to see them without having to perhaps rely on public transport. Around 23 percent of Arizona residents are enrolled with the state's Medicaid agency, so the rideshare option could benefit more than a million people right out of the gate.

Lyft wrote in a blog post that more states are starting to add ridesharing as a covered transportation option under their Medicaid programs. Florida and Texas also brought laws into force on that issue in recent months.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/26/...ical-rides-arizona/?yptr=yahoo
 

In a keynote address the following day, Chuck Robbins introduced a second video telling the inside story of how Rakuten and Cisco built the new mobile network in “record time.” Reconstructing conversations between Tareq Amin and Prakash has a accountDistinguished Engineer at Cisco, Prakash Suthar, the video described the plan to build an end-to-end cloud native network as “an ambitious idea, an unprecedented idea,” adding: “Industry experts called it impossible, but that didn’t stop them, that just made them hungry.”

After months of teamwork, Rakuten and Cisco has built a network that can bring a new radio site online in just 10 minutes, via automation, compared with the three weeks required in a conventional mobile network.  That kind of flexibility promises to transform the economics of mobile connectivity and enable Rakuten’s customers to benefit from low cost 4G and 5G services.

https://rakuten.today/blog/...uck-robbins-rakuten-mobile-network.html
 

partnership for music events

Lyft Inc. has struck another deal to provide transportation services at major entertainment destinations.

The San Francisco company has inked with Los Angeles-based Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) to be the exclusive rideshare, bike and scooter partner for 16 AEG Presents-owned or -operated music assets across eight U.S. markets.

Under the deal, Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT) will create and operate designated dropoff and pickup “Lyft Spots” for its cars, bikes and scooters at venues including the Shrine Auditorium & Expo Hall in Los Angeles at Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival at Dodger Stadium in November.

The pact marks the first time that AEG Presents has integrated shared scooter and bike options to offer travel options to and from live events at its music properties. Meanwhile, the deal expands Lyft’s customer touchpoints to tens of thousands of live-event and festival attendees, the company said.

https://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2019/...-partnership.html
 

FTSE Blossom Japan Index, and other major ESG investment indices

Rakuten, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has been selected for the leading ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) indices: FTSE4Good Index Series and FTSE Blossom Japan Index for the first time.

In addition, Rakuten was again selected as an index component for the MSCI ESG Leaders Indexes, Japan ESG Select Leaders Index, and MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index this year. Moreover, Rakuten has been selected as an index constituent for S&P/JPX Carbon Efficient Index as well.

https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2019/...category=corp%20ir
 

Carrie Ghose  – Staff reporter, Columbus Business First
Jun 26, 2019, 2:42pm EDT Updated Jun 26, 2019, 4:35pm EDT

Lyft Inc. is the latest company rolling scooters into Columbus.

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2019/06/...-incolumbus.html

 

Japanese QR payment users are expected to increase to 20 million by the end of 2021
January 17, 2019

The latest market trend survey on mobile cashless payment in Japan, announced by ICT Research & Consulting, finds that active electric payment users on mobile phone apps were up 29.6% year on year to 11.57 million in 2019. QR payment users particularly increased by 173.8% to 5.12 million and are expected to increase to about 20 million by the end of 2021.

The most-used mobile electric money is Suica, followed by Rakuten Edy, nanaco, WAON and iD. The most-used QR payment is Rakuten Pay, followed by Pay Pay, LINE Pay and d pay.

https://www.travelvoice.jp/english/...0-million-by-the-end-of-fy2021/
 

Rakuten Super Logistics leases Anaheim building as a fulfillment centerThe facility is the first fulfillment center for the e-commerce distributor in California. Rakuten Super Logistics has leased a 60,809-square-foot industrial building in Anaheim for five years. The facility is the first fulfillment center for the e-commerce distributor in California.

In a press release released in February, RSL said it would open six fulfillment centers in 2019, expanding its operations to a total of 18 markets.

https://www.ocregister.com/2019/06/28/...ing-as-a-fulfillment-center/