Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

Fanatics launches first online marketplace in Japan with Rakuten pact

Japanese fans can now buy from digital sports platform's extensive merchandise range.

5 JULY 2023 JOSH SIM

Japanese fans can buy from Fanatics’ licensed sports merchandise range on Rakuten Ichiba, which is owned by financial technology company Rakuten.

Store offers more than 10,000 officially licensed products from across Fanatics’ partner roster.

Fanatics partners with an extensive list of sports organisations, teams and leagues, including Major League Baseball (MLB), Formula One and English soccer club Manchester United.

The tie-up with Rakuten marks the latest partnership Fanatics has agreed with an overseas retailer, having already signed agreements with the likes of Next, Foot Locker and Walmart.

Fanatics plans to eventually expand its available merchandise range to over 50,000 products.

https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/...n-ichiba/?zephr_sso_ott=AA2mON  

Rakuten Card's number of credit cards issued 2019-2022

Published by Statista Research Department, Apr 18, 2023

By December 2022, Rakuten Card Co., Ltd. has issued around 28.1 million credit cards. The company's number of cards issued to customers increased from about 25.1 million in the previous year. Rakuten Card is a credit card company that was established in 2001 and is part of Rakuten Group.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1313856/...f-credit-cards-issued/  

There can be more than one super app

The super app industry isn’t a zero-sum game as every company that strives to be successful will try to constantly gain more services, users and market share in their target regions. The market is super dynamic and always changing. If a particular service is dramatically superior on another platform, it can cause cracks in the already existing super app, as users may make the leap to a new service. One strong service can help gradually gain momentum and expand both the company’s user base and the services offered. As long as there is a free market and people willing to use multiple apps on their phones, the super app arena is open for business.

But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Meaning, the platform’s relationship with its users, and its ability to connect the dots between services will be the secret to its success. Having a greater overview of a user's digital lifecycle will allow the application to provide services that are more personalized, relevant and accurate. It also means that if one of the services offered is below the accepted user level, the super app is weakened as a whole.

In the west, we more often see standalone apps that specialize in single services. While done extremely well, the movement towards more services under one roof is changing the approach of many application developers. The focus in the industry as we speak is shifting to a superior end-to-end user experience. The big players within the application industry are aware of the business potential. Once users experience the added value of a one-stop shop app without compromising on service quality, the magic of the super app will occur.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/what-super-apps-need-to-be-a-success  

Earned their 17 million members more than $3.7 billion in cash back.

Once installed, Rakuten looks for cash-back deals and rewards that could be offered at the online store you’re browsing. “Rakuten offers cash back on purchases from over 2,500 stores,” said Casey Jones, founder and head of marketing and finance at CJ&CO. “It also applies coupons automatically at checkout.”

Rakuten’s website reports that they’ve earned their 17 million members more than $3.7 billion in cash back.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...sions-save-180404712.html?.tsrc=rss  

$ 0.2 billion from the sale of stake of Saiyu

$ 2.0 billion from the offering of additional shares

$ 0.5 billion from the IPO of Rakuten Bank

Next funding could be

$ 0.7 billion from the IPO Rakuten Securities

$ 0.5 billion from the sale of the stake of Cabify  

We are Symphony: A conversation with Manu Kulshreshtha

July 21, 2023

What excites you the most about Rakuten Symphony?

The future at Rakuten Symphony is incredibly bright. We're delivering groundbreaking solutions worldwide, and we're at the forefront of the Open RAN movement. It's incredible to think that we started from scratch, and have come so far. What truly amazes me about this whole journey is the unexpected opportunities it has provided. As an engineer, I never anticipated the incredible experiences of meeting inspiring individuals from around the globe, and this place has surpassed my expectations with regard to learning and skill development. It's a testament to the power of self-belief and hard work that so many of my colleagues have been able to progress, connected by the mission to to shape the future together.

https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...versation-with-manu-kulshreshtha  

Twid is a new-age fintech solution, built grounds up from our technology to solve large unsolved problems in Loyalty and Rewards.

Despite earning loyalty points from Credit/Debit Cards, Retail, Fintechs, Online Brands, Travel, and more, their visibility and usage are marginal. TWID is revolutionizing this space by making reward points completely ubiquitous and fungible, thus building them as a currency so that you can use them freely for everything and everywhere at merchants directly without any friction.

Twid operates checkout option “Pay With Rewards” at 35,000+ merchants such as JioMart, NetMeds, MilkBasket, Yatra, Ixigo, ConfirmTkt where rewards currencies such as Intermiles, Payback, SuperCoins, TimesPoints, Nth Rewards and others can be redeemed seamlessly.

TWID is backed by leading fintech and loyalty funds and global leaders including Sequoia Surge, Beenext, Rakuten and Google.

https://twidpay.com/about-twid.html  

Visa partners seven new startups to accelerate payments innovation in Asia Pacific

SINGAPORE, May 16, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Visa, a world leader in digital payments, today announced seven new startups it will partner as part of its Visa Accelerator Program in Asia Pacific. The seven startups selected as part of the 2023 program are from India, Mainland China, Thailand, Singapore and Germany and they will be working on solutions in the areas of Web 3.0, global money movement, embedded finance, merchant and small business enablers, and open banking solutions.

The startups selected for the 2023 cohort are Dowsure (Mainland China), Doxa Holdings (Singapore), Kadmos (Germany), Pi-xcels (Singapore), Playbux (Thailand), Transpure (India) and Twid (India). Over a course of six months, these startups will have the unique opportunity to collaborate with Visa's payment experts, business development teams and customers to co-develop, test and iterate their solutions, while validating them against commercial opportunities with Visa's extensive network of financial institutions, merchants and digital partners.

he seven startups for the 2023 cohort were selected from a pool of more than 450 applicants. They are:



Dowsure (Mainland China) provides digital financing experiences for cross-border merchants on global e-Commerce platforms.

Doxa Holdings (Singapore) offers a collaborative trade platform that enables automated procure-to-pay and financing workflows for companies operating in a cross-industry ecosystem.

Kadmos (Germany) offers an end-to-end salary payments platform for migrant workers, bringing fintech, low margins, and transparent FX to traditional industries.

Pi-xcels (Singapore) digitises paper receipts instantly to provide offline retailers with real-time actionable shopper data, via a single tap.

Playbux (Thailand) provides a fully integrated Web 3.0 community platform with commerce activities, blockchain technology, NFTs, and virtual communities.

Transpure (India) provides technology to minimise friction, build seamless and cost-effective solutions for cross-border payments and remittances.

Twid (India) is a rewards-based payment network that brings together various issuers' rewards points systems to enable them as a mode of payment across merchants.

https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/...nking%2520solutions.  

Dikran Seferian Published: May 29, 2023

https://dexatel.com/blog/viber-features/  

Rakuten's Data Empowers Local Governments

July 21, 2023

The second Innovation Forum for Local Governments event was held as a platform for Rakuten Group to share how its marketing knowhow and data can help local governments solve social issues and deepen their understanding of Rakuten's ideas for supporting regional economies. Check out the video and learn why regional governments are considering promoting the Furusato Nozei (Hometown Tax) program to travelers from Rakuten Travel as well as hear success cases of sales promotion through live commerce.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LXgwZbep6o  

Compare with Jeff Bezos!  

Rakuten Securities Launches ChatGPT-Based AI Assistant

Wednesday, 19/07/2023

Rakuten Securities, a major Japanese broker, has launched an Artificial Intelligence chat service, called Investment AI Assistant, developed using the core model of OpenAI's ChatGPT. It aims to support beginner investors with their decisions.

The AI chat service has been launched as a beta version until the end of September with a cap on the maximum number of users. It will operate on a first-come, first-served basis and terminate the service as soon as the daily limits are reached.

https://www.financemagnates.com/tag/rakuten-securities/  

The success-story of ShopBack

ShopBack started out nine years ago in 2014 as the brainchild of former Zalora executives Henry Chan and Joel Leong.

Last December, ShopBack raised a total of US$160 million in its Series F funding and to date, it has managed to expand its presence across Asia Pacific, including Australia and most recently, Hong Kong.

ShopBack is a cashback rewards platform that allows its users to receive a small percentage of their purchases on the platform, which is paid for by merchants.

This is made possible through affiliate marketing arrangements, where the merchants pay a fee to ShopBack to drive sales and traffic to their websites.

Today, affiliate marketing has grown to a US$20 billion dollar industry, with interest in the sector growing by almost 300 per cent from 2017 to 2021 globally.

Beyond just driving online traffic and sales, ShopBack has been making consistent efforts to expand its offerings into the offline space since 2020 to stay more competitive in the e-commerce space.

The integration of ShopBack’s online and offline offerings, especially since its entry into the payments space with ShopBack Pay and ShopBack PayLater last year, has brought in more value for merchants onboard the e-commerce platform by attracting an even wider pool of customers.

According to Joel, an average user would have saved about S$139 as of today, if they had joined and utilised ShopBack since January 2022. In total, the startup has given out S$460 million in cashback to its shoppers since 2014.

Over the past nine years, ShopBack has accumulated a vast amount of consumer data, namely from about 40 million of its shoppers across multiple continents and different transaction categories. Through this data, the company creates hyper-personalised content for consumers, ensuring that the “right content is showed to the right shopper at the right time”.

https://vulcanpost.com/832744/...secrets-to-success-5b-in-sales-2022/  

J&T Express establishes partnership with Carousell to provide convenient door-to-door delivery services in Singapore

With its expertise in door-to-door delivery services and experience working with e-commerce partners, J&T Express Singapore will be supporting Carousell Singapore to provide hassle-free shipping solutions to sellers and buyers.

https://www.thaipr.net/en/general_en/3345283  

Rakuten to Power Fashion Show for “A BATHING APE” Through the “by R” Project to Support Japanese Fashion Labels

- Conveying the appeal of the brand at Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO 2024 S/S.

Tokyo, July 25, 2023 – Rakuten Group, Inc. today announced that it will support the fashion show for the brand “A BATHING APE” (“BAPE”) during Rakuten Fashion Week TOKYO 2024 S/S, scheduled for August 28 to September 2, 2023, through the “by R” project to support Japanese fashion brands. Footage of the fashion show, “A BATHING APE SPRING / SUMMER 2024 RUNWAY SHOW by R,” will be live-streamed free of charge on Rakuten Fashion, the fashion e-commerce site operated by Rakuten.

https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/update/2023/0725_01.html  

JULY 24, 2023

Rakuten Advertising held its 20th annual DealMaker USA conference in La Quinta, California! Industry-leading advertisers, publishers, and agencies from within the Rakuten Advertising network gathered for three days of networking, fun and of course the high-energy Golden Link Awards. Check out the video and see for yourself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNorvVf52UU  

Dell’Oro Group remains bullish on the space but admits that deployment realities are becoming more evident

Dan Meyer Executive Editor July 24, 2023 10:19 PM

The open RAN market itself has cooled over the past several quarters, with Dell’Oro Group making its first downward revision to market growth. The analyst firm said it now expects open RAN equipment to account for between 15% and 20% of the global RAN market by 2027, which is 5% to 10% less than it had been expecting.

The firm remains bullish on the space but admits that deployment realities are becoming more evident.

“We can think of this revision more as a near-term calibration than a change in the long-term growth trajectory,” Stefan Pongratz, VP and analyst at Dell’Oro Group, noted in a report. “This journey of ‘re-shaping’ the RAN was never expected to be smooth and many challenges remain. Even so, our long-term position has not changed. We continue to believe that open RAN is here to stay, and the growing support by the incumbent suppliers bolsters this thesis.”

https://www.sdxcentral.com/articles/analysis/...s-to-a-crawl/2023/07/  

With ORAN, India & US eye breaking Chinese stranglehold on telecom gear

Pankaj Doval / TNN / Updated: Jun 25, 2023

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/...;utm_campaign=cppst  

Seltsamerweise werden in Deutschland 1&1, die ORAN betreiben, massiv Knüppel in die Beine geworfen - von staatlicher Seite und Konkurrenten, die gegen Wettbewerbsgesetze verstoßen.  

Offensichtlich schmieren die Platzhirsche die Behörden besser.  

Number of Rakuten Viki users in Brazil in 2020 & 2022

Published by A. Guttmann,

Jan 5, 2023

In 2022, there were around 4.5 million people in Brazil using either the free or the paid version of Rakuten Viki, a video streaming service focused on Asian productions, including dorama (Japanese television drama) and k-drama (South Korean dramatic series). Two years earlier, the number stood at approximately 2.73 million. Therefore, the figure grew by 65 percent during that period. It was estimated that the number of video-on-demand (VoD) subscriptions in Brazil would surpass 25 million by the end of 2022.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1323003/rakuten-viki-users-brazil/  

https://jetstream.bz/archives/174286
 

Rakuten wird voraussichtlich am 10.08.2023 das Zahlenwerk zum am 30.06.2023 ausgelaufenen Quartal vorlegen.

2 Analysten prognostizieren im Schnitt einen Verlust je Aktie von -0,182 USD gegenüber -0,405 USD im Vorjahresquartal.

https://www.finanzen.ch/nachrichten/aktien/...ahresviertel-1032476750  

Rakuten Card's number of credit cards issued 2019-2022

Published by Statista Research Department, Apr 18, 2023

By December 2022, Rakuten Card Co., Ltd. has issued around 28.1 million credit cards. The company's number of cards issued to customers increased from about 25.1 million in the previous year. Rakuten Card is a credit card company that was established in 2001 and is part of Rakuten Group.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1313856/...f-credit-cards-issued/  

https://crecolle.jp/card/rakuten-card/