Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

July 28, 2022

Robin.io:

Edge has taken the front seat with the rising demand for new applications. While consumers want high availability and low latency for real-time experiences, enterprises and telecom operators need to focus on improving local processing for resilient and secure operations. They need to deploy complex storage and network-intensive apps to edge clusters. Software management, thus, has become intricate, posing a severe problem for enterprises and telecom operators. Identifying this gap almost a decade ago, Mr. Partha Seetala formed Robin.io, a hyper-converged cloud-native Kubernetes platform deployed at scale and running some of the complex data-and-network-intensive applications for large enterprises & service providers.

Inception

Under the dynamic leadership of Mr. Seetala, Robin.io could make rapid strides in the market by abstracting the complexity of provisioning a wide variety of modern infrastructure on demand and driving everything from the point of view of applications. Robin.io specializes in solving challenges such as automated deployment, scaling, and lifecycle management of enterprise, edge, and telco applications through cloud-native technologies powered by Kubernetes.

What does Robin.io do?

Robin.io has built an award-winning, industry leading hyper-converged platform that accelerates easy deployment and lifecycle management of various data-and-network-intensive workloads. Robin.io aids in the simplification of data protection and management of entire pipelines of applications by protecting and making them resilient to infrastructure failures.

Robin.io empowers the world’s leading enterprises and service providers to put the power of application automation into the hands of the experts building, deploying, and managing the life cycle of the applications. Robin.io’s Kubernetes framework provides all the essential features that help organizations roll out business- and mission-critical applications at high speed. These features include intelligent placement of workloads, auto-scheduling, self-healing, auto rollout, rollbacks, and disaster recovery, among others.

Recently, Robin.io was acquired by Rakuten Symphony, catapulting its team and products to form the foundational layer of the Unified Cloud Business Unit of Rakuten Symphony Inc.

https://www.thetechnologyera.com/...top-10-innovative-edge-companies/  

Roaming on KDDI’s network dropping to 10 per cent of traffic from 30 per cent in Q1 2021, profitability is expected to start improving in the current quarter.

Converting of remaining customers on free plans to paid users in the current quarter.

Average data usage per paying customers increased 40.8 per cent, though didn’t disclose the actual monthly volume.

Rakuten Symphony CEO Tareq Amin said its platform business is now in the delivery stage after booking contracts and expects to record a significant amount of revenue in 2022, with growth accelerating at the beginning of 2023.

https://www.mobileworldlive.com/asia/asia-news/...lity-as-costs-peak/
 

MOBILE PAYMENT SERVICES MARKET 2022 KEY COMPANIES PROFILE, INDUSTRY SIZE ESTIMATION 2028 – MERPAY, PAYTM, LINE PAY, APPLE PAY, RAKUTEN PAY, ETC

Anita July 27, 2022

This report centers about the top players in global Mobile Payment Services marketplace:
merPay
Paytm
LINE Pay
Apple Pay
Rakuten Pay
D-barai
pring
Origami
Google Pay
Pixiv PAY
Alipay

https://thepost.nz/2022/07/27/...-line-pay-apple-pay-rakuten-pay-etc/
 

Viber, the messaging app owned by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, has long been dancing around the area of fintech, launching services like money transfer and chatbot payments in various countries over the years. Now it is making a move to double down on that strategy: It’s launching Payments on Viber — a new service that will let users set up digital wallets tied to their Viber accounts.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/31/...ge-tune-on-investment-landscape/

https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/26/...oney-transfers-and-buying-goods/
 

https://s-max.jp/archives/1817552.htmlhives/1817552.html  

CLOUD RADIO ACCESS NETWORK MARKET TO OBSERVE STRONG DEVELOPMENT BY 2029
The following are some of the most prominent market players:

ZTE Corporation
Datang Mobile
NEC Corporation
Ericsson AB
ASOCS Ltd.
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Intel Corporation
Nokia Corporation
Mavenir
Fujitsu
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Altiostar (owned by Rakuten)
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

https://thepost.nz/2022/08/01/...sson-ab-asocs-ltd-cisco-systems-etc/  

Perhaps the largest focus of the debate centered around Open RAN readiness.

Hollingworth cheekily introduced the subject as the “elephant in the room” lamenting the common “is Open RAN ready” refrain, which is used often in regard to brownfield deployment scenarios.

“Every year, hundreds of millions of dollars are invested in new network builds and operations. What percentage do you want to invest in something new? That's the question of risk appetite. Rakuten Mobile in Japan, given its scenario, invested 100%. This isn’t realistic for everyone, but once it’s determined how much to invest, the most important thing one can do is learn from that investment so a determination can be made whether to increase or decrease as time progresses.”

Schoolar had his reservations about whether Open RAN is 100% ready, citing Rakuten Mobile as a special case that’s not easily repeatable.

Hollingworth challenged this sentiment, citing the age of the technology, its proven performance at scale, high density coverage, with an increasingly diverse supply chain ready to support it. He underscored that readiness comes down to a mindset and incentivization to change and do something different, acknowledging that any new journey can be very hard and so stakeholders must be ready for what is to come.

“The mindset with which Rakuten came to market was internet and services focused,” said Hollingworth. “It doesn’t take an army, but rather, a small number of good people with the right software and internet skillsets.”

https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...n-this-corner-open-ran-readiness  

https://6g-ric.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/...teme-Tagesspiegel.pdf  

 

Revenues of Rakuten Symphony in Q3/22 und Q4/22 after my estimates between $300 and $400 million
are important steps for the progress of Rakuten Mobile to reach the break-even in 2023.  

https://www.newsdirectory3.com/...at-abolished-the-0-yen-startcolumn/  

rakuten-mobile-abema-premium-campaign

https://appllio.com/news/...466-rakuten-mobile-abema-premium-campaign  

Value of the ownership of Rakuten in Cabify is between $700 million and $800 million

Cabify has been giving Mutua access with 1.2% in the first round since 2018.

Date: August 3, 2022 Time: 02:06:40

And finally Cabify left for the capital. A Spanish startup has just announced its closure capital increase in which Mutua Madrileña participatedwhat is done with 1.26% shares. The operation, the total amount of which was not disclosed, would have been performed at a “slightly higher” score to what was established in the last round, as the startup got to know the employees. It does not mention what the deal is, but the reality is that the last relevant increase was set in 2018, with a “cap” of $1,400 million.

Cabify has Rakuten, through its venture capital division, as a reference shareholder. He became the owner of 47% of the shares after investing more than 230 million euros. Added to this are loans granted to the Spanish subsidiary. These were two credit lines for a total amount of more than 33 million euros. In 2020, the Japanese refused to convert this debt into shares, as it suggested a strong discount from the last valuation.

https://eprimefeed.com/latest-news/...-first-round-since-2018/147127/
 

Strong investment trust-business of Rakuten Securities

2. August

Rakuten Securities, der monatlich festgelegte Betrag der Investment-Trust-Reserven überstieg 100 Milliarden Yen!

- Anstieg um 56,3% gegenüber Ende Juli 2021! Anstieg von 50 Milliarden Yen in etwa 1 Jahr und 3 Monaten

https://www.rakuten-sec.co.jp/web/company/...se/pdf/press20220802.pdf
 

Rakuten Capital led the startup’s Series A round, which also saw participation from Google
Google backs Indian rewards payments startup Twid

Jagmeet Singh@jagmeets13 / 8:32 PM GMT+2•August 2, 2022

Twid, an Indian startup operating a rewards-based payment platform, has raised $12 million to scale its network of merchants and issuers and expand its solution in the South Asian market.

Rakuten Capital led the startup’s Series A round, which also saw participation from Google and existing investors including Sequoia Surge and Beenext.

Twid allows customers to pay at offline and online stores using their existing loyalty and reward points from banks, fintech platforms and e-commerce websites. The Bengaluru-based startup’s partners include online grocer JioMart, pharmacy NetMeds, ticketing platform Yatra and music streamer Gaana.

Twid plans to use the fresh funds to grow its network and go deeper into the business, Koshal told TechCrunch. “The second one is that we want to build a great moonshot talent team. So, we are growing in all departments,” he said. The company currently has a headcount of 42 people.

The executive noted that there are plans to bolster the technology and “invest a lot” in data science. Rakuten India CEO Sunil Gopinath is joining the Twid board of directors on behalf of Rakuten Capital.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/02/...d-points-based-payment-platform/  

https://news.kakaku.com/prdnews/cd=keitai/ctcd=3147/id=121693/  

Including locations in Bengaluru and Indore, Rakuten Symphony’s employee base in India has grown to over 3,300 in less than one year through acquisitions and organic growth

Narendra Narayana, Managing Director of Rakuten Symphony India said, “Rakuten Symphony India represents a key driver of innovation in the telecom space, and we are very excited to further expand our presence. We look forward to fostering local talent and working with local Indian and global partners to promote the adoption of Open RAN technologies and empower global telecom operators to build and operate secure mobile networks.”

Including locations in Bengaluru and Indore, Rakuten Symphony’s employee base in India has grown to over 3,300 in less than one year through acquisitions and organic growth, and there are plans to further expand headcount over the coming years through recruitment in the fields of Open RAN, cloud, automation, data and telecom standards. India is also an important source of new talent for Rakuten Symphony, with about 150 graduates from top engineering colleges set to come to Japan in 2022 to work for Rakuten Mobile and support the growth of Rakuten Symphony.

With operations across Japan, the United States, Singapore, India, Europe and the Middle East Africa region, Rakuten Symphony brings together all of Rakuten’s telco products, services and solutions under a single global banner to offer 4G and 5G infrastructure and platform solutions to customers worldwide.

https://symphony.rakuten.com/newsroom/...ilities%2520in%2520Bengaluru



 

https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/about/insights/...nking-systems.html  

https://bitwave.showcase-tv.com/rakuten-mobile-pointcampaign/  

Twid raises $12 million in Series A funding

Haripriya Sureban |Bengaluru, August 3 | Updated On: Aug 03, 2022

Twid, a reward point-based payment solutions, has raised $12 million in Series A funding round led by Rakuten Capital.

The round saw participation from Google, ICMG Partners, JAFCO Asia, January Capital and Reddy Futures Fund and existing investors BEENEXT and Sequoia India’s Surge.

With this funding round, Sunil Gopinath, CEO of Rakuten India, will join the Twid board of directors on behalf of Rakuten Capital, Rakuten Group’s corporate venture capital arm.

Founded in 2020 by Amit Koshal, Rishi Batra, and Amit Sharma, Twid is a network effect platform that combines multiple loyalty/reward points across issuers such as banks, fintech firms, and retail/e-commerce brands. It allows consumers to pay at offline and online stores with a ‘one-click-checkout’ experience using their reward points.

With over 40 million registered users, and 50,000 live merchants, Twid has a payment network of banks, brands, payment gateways, merchants, and customers, said the company.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/...a-funding/article65720667.ece  

US Affiliate Marketing Investment in 2021 Drove $71B in E-Commerce Sales – Findings from New Performance Marketing Association Report

According to the brand new PMA industry study, produced in conjunction with PwC, affiliate marketing spend grew 47% in 2021 versus calendar year 2018.

The study solicited information from seven leading affiliate networks and platforms: Awin, CJ, LinkConnector, Partnerize, Ascend by Partnerize, Rakuten Advertising, and ShareASale. The average ROAS was 12:1, meaning that every dollar invested in the channel drove $12 in e-commerce revenue.

It’s pleasing to see that content and subnetwork publisher investment accounted for 27% of total channel investment. The expansion in revenue for these publisher types reflects growing recognition of the channel’s power at all stages of the buying funnel.

“Affiliate is at the forefront of improving effectiveness and outcomes for brand marketing,” said Christen Evans, PMA Board President. “This important study demonstrates the rapid growth of our industry and the many ways it is expanding to include more industries, publisher types, investors, and marketing objectives.”

https://performancein.com/news/2022/08/02/...ting-association-report/  

Correlations between Rakuten Mobile subscribers and spend on other Rakuten Group digital services and content

Rakuten showed correlations between Rakuten Mobile subscribers and spend on other Rakuten Group digital services and content. Proving what we all know instinctively to be true: it’s not about adding more features to mobile service – it’s about bringing mobility into the interactions that consumers want to have. In how they are entertained, make plans, buy things. If the mobility – the ubiquity – that enables all of these is high quality and reliable, people will likely do more of them.

https://appledoreresearch.com/2022/05/16/...y-quarterly-update-q1-22/  

Rakuten Super Logistics acquired by executive of firm it once bought
FirstMile founder Devin Johnson renames company ShipNetwork, announces plan to expand national 3PL network.

The third party logistics provider (3PL) Rakuten Super Logistics has rebranded under the name ShipNetwork after being acquired on Monday by Devin Johnson, the founder of a company that Rakuten itself had acquired in 2019.

The new owner bought Rakuten Super Logistics from its corporate parent, San Mateo, California-based Rakuten Americas, which is the North American division of Japan’s Rakuten Group Inc., an internet service provider. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and ShipNetwork did not reply to a request for comment on how the deal was financed.

Las Vegas-based Rakuten Super Logistics has historically acted as an order fulfillment arm both for its sister company Rakuten.com—the online marketplace formerly known as Ebates—and for other e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Amazon, Magento, Walmart Marketplace, and eBay.

https://www.supplychainquarterly.com/articles/...-firm-it-once-bought
 

The sale of Rakuten Super Logistics  makes sense, because Rakuten's United States marketplace service located at Rakuten.com/shop stopped taking orders from September 15, 2020 – and Rakuten.com is in the United State only a marketing company (cash back, affiliate-marketing and other forms of advertising).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...2520September%252015%2C%25202020%22.
 

passt zur fundamentalen Schieflage des Unternehmens.