Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

Rakuten Americas are highly invested in driving innovation and leadership in performance marketing

„Marketers need to invest in strategies that motivate consumers to spend by implementing a cross-funnel strategy for meeting customers where they are -- whether that's in-store, online or both," continued Patel. "In an era when consumers prize authenticity and privacy, shoppers will welcome customized, native opt-in experiences like targeted cash back rewards, affiliate marketing, online advertising and influencer engagement throughout their shopping journey."

Among the world's largest e-commerce companies, Rakuten is highly invested in driving innovation and leadership in performance marketing. Through its Americas headquarters in San Mateo, Rakuten offers a suite of leading performance marketing solutions that reach, engage and inspire consumers around the world, and deliver results across the entire consumer journey.

To learn more about Rakuten's performance marketing solutions that can help merchants stand out this back-to-school season, click here.

About Rakuten Americas

Rakuten Americas is the North American division of Rakuten, Inc., (Japan), a global leader in internet services that empower individuals, communities, businesses and society. Headquartered in San Mateo, California with more than 2,400 employees nationwide, the Rakuten Americas business portfolio includes market leaders in e-commerce, digital marketing, advertising, business intelligence, logistics, communications and entertainment. We create products and services that provide exceptional value by aligning members and the businesses that want to engage them in a shared community.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/...hopping-1030635254  

Japan’s largest online bank sees record growth in 2021

JULY 21, 2021

Earlier this month, Rakuten Bank announced two big firsts: Its 11 millionth bank account*1— a first for a domestic online bank in Japan*2 — and its total balance of deposits (non-consolidated) exceeding six trillion yen.

11 million accounts don’t just happen overnight

Since launching in 2001, Rakuten Bank has attracted customers and retained their loyalty for being easily accessible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — as well as for its wide range of products and services. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the new normal which has ensued, many individuals and corporations are using Rakuten Bank for banking services that can be conducted entirely online.

In recent years, more and more customers are choosing Rakuten Bank as their main banking account, and the online bank is responding by continuing to improve its portfolio of services. The company launched an instant payment service for Rakuten Bank accounts on the Rakuten Pay app, increased the number of partners offering Rakuten Bank as an option for automatic money transfers, and its convenience store payment service, which allows app-based payments for payment slips, has become more widely available. Their dedicated app also recently received a redesign.

For corporations, Rakuten Bank’s unique services include its business support program, which offers select business services free of charge to corporate customers, as well as the Rakuten Bank Business Debit Card, which features cashback of 1%.

Secret to success

This success translates to more than just increased account numbers. Since December 2020, when Rakuten Bank’s total balance of deposits (non-consolidated) exceeded five trillion yen, the bank was able to increase its deposit balance to six trillion yen in approximately six months by working to continuously improve existing services — while also introducing new ones.

Notably, this success was not achieved alone. In recent years, the company has strengthened collaborations across the Rakuten’s Group’s diverse portfolio of services, with initiatives such as the Super Point Up Program*3, which scales up the percentage of points earned on the Rakuten Ichiba marketplace, and provision of the Money Bridge service, which connects Rakuten Bank and Rakuten Securities accounts. The number of Money Bridge-linked accounts surpassed two million in January 2021, and the number of customers using multiple Rakuten financial services has continued to increase.

With the pandemic keeping people indoors and necessitating new lifestyle choices, even more customers are turning to Rakuten Bank for its convenience as an entirely-online banking service — one that never requires a visit to a physical location.
________________________________________
*1 Excludes closed accounts.
*2 As of July 5, 2021. Research by Rakuten Bank.
*3 If a customer uses their Rakuten Card to pay when buying products on Rakuten Ichiba and the account used to pay is a Rakuten Bank account, they will earn an additional +1% point-back incentive.

https://rakuten.today/blog/...est-online-bank-record-growth-2021.html  

 They have been into many space now but they are regulating their hiring policy and also they have been changing their CTC for new joiners now and then.

It surely shows that they have been continuously playing with their policy and adapting to new policy.

 

ShopBack, the #1 rewards and discovery platform in Asia-Pacific, enables shoppers across the region to shop "The Smarter Way”. It is a one-stop rewards and discovery platform for users to earn cashback, while delivering performance-based marketing to merchants. First launched in Singapore in 2014, ShopBack has since expanded its reach to Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan,  Australia, and more recently, Vietnam and Korea. In Singapore, the company has also extended its service offering with ShopBack GO, an app-based rewards platform for in-store shopping, dining, and entertainment. We are a passionate team that wants to drive innovation and build a product that we love and are all proud of!

ShopBack partners with over 4,000 merchants including Taobao, Expedia, Shopee, ZALORA to reward its users with cashback across a wide range of categories including general merchandise, travel bookings, fashion, health and beauty, groceries, and food delivery. To date, US$100m in cashback has been awarded to our over 20 million users.

We have global ambitions and are up against international incumbents in a rapidly emerging field!

https://jobs.lever.co/shopback-2/2db6c2d7-455a-437f-996a-668a5a923ddd
 

Open vRAN is the Open vRAN is the Perfect Fit for this 4G &5G Investment Cycle – White Paper

This LightCounting white paper created in conjunction with Altiostar explores the value of Open vRAN for the current 4G and 5G investment cycle and discusses the progress made to date with current deployments and what’s in store for the industry.

There is no shortage of evidence to prove that running BBU functions on software as VNFs with open interfaces creates a programmable Open vRAN platform that enables a great degree of agility, flexibility, scalability, reliability, and automation. Backed by fresh Rakuten Mobile operational data for 4G and 5G networks, we see that all of this leads to lower Capex and Opex, which is excellent news in this era of stagnant or low-single digit revenue growth.

And seeing Airtel and Telefónica jumping on the Open vRAN bandwagon, among other leading CSPs, provides a strong rationale to believe that Open vRAN meets the operational cost and the network performance expectations required of Brownfield deployments.

https://www.altiostar.com/why-open-vran-is-fully-vindicated-july-2021/ – White Paper

This LightCounting white paper created in conjunction with Altiostar explores the value of Open vRAN for the current 4G and 5G investment cycle and discusses the progress made to date with current deployments and what’s in store for the industry.

There is no shortage of evidence to prove that running BBU functions on software as VNFs with open interfaces creates a programmable Open vRAN platform that enables a great degree of agility, flexibility, scalability, reliability, and automation. Backed by fresh Rakuten Mobile operational data for 4G and 5G networks, we see that all of this leads to lower Capex and Opex, which is excellent news in this era of stagnant or low-single digit revenue growth.

And seeing Airtel and Telefónica jumping on the Open vRAN bandwagon, among other leading CSPs, provides a strong rationale to believe that Open vRAN meets the operational cost and the network performance expectations required of Brownfield deployments.

https://www.altiostar.com/why-open-vran-is-fully-vindicated-july-2021/  

SHOPBACK! THE SMARTER WAY TO SHOP

Hey guys! In this video, I talked about Shopback. I have been using this app whenever I make purchases online and I got to say, its a great way of making you feel less guilty about your purchases! LOL. Kidding aside, its a great way to atleast make some decent discount from your purchases. If you want to sign up, Id appreciate it if youd use my link. This will help me earn a referral reward and will help me in the growth of this channel. Thank you and have a awesome day!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLQ6hBSYca0  

„As it stands, Rakuten is still spending heavily on network rollout and the costs associated with domestic roaming, both of which should decline as the network build progresses. The firm has achieved 80% population coverage on 4G and aims to hit 96% this summer. Meanwhile, the award of additional spectrum at 1.7 GHz will enable to speed up 5G rollout; it launched a limited 5G service in March.

At the same time, the telco’s customer base and revenues are growing. Q1 turnover came in at 56.7 billion yen, up 45% year-on-year, and as of 11 May it had clocked up 4.1 million customer applications, the only metric it provides on that front. Customer applications have accelerated this year – the company had just over 2 million at the end of last year – and it attributes this to the launch of its newest plan, UN-LIMIT IV in January.

“This has been very well received,” Yamada said. Even when rival operators launched value plans of their own in March, “the pace of the applications for Rakuten Mobile was not impacted,” he said.

Rakuten Mobile’s first year in operation drew to a close last month, and that is also significant from the point of view of generating revenues, with many early customers signing up to free 12-month plans. “We expect more revenues from the second quarter onwards,” Yamada said.

Outside of Japan, the future is also rosy.

“Many telcos around the world are starting to adopt our architecture,” noted Tareq Amin, Rakuten Mobile’s CTO, taking up the company as a disruptive force in Open RAN, edge network platform architecture, and automation.

Indeed, when asked which of the Rakuten Group’s global businesses has the most potential, Mikitani highlighted the export of mobile technology as “significant”. Huge mobile operators around the world want not only the Rakuten mobile platform – known as RCP, or the Rakuten Communications Platform – but are also keen to buy its membership programme, its AI capabilities, and so forth, he claimed.

“In addition to promoting the export of our mobile platform, it is quite possible we could form business partnerships with global telecom players to export e-commerce, fin tech, and the membership programme,” Mikitani said.“

https://telecoms.com/509763/...e-eyes-tremendous-profitability-ahead/  

Number of subsrictions of Rakuten Mobile will reach after my estimates 5 million during August and 6 million at the end of 2021.  

As the world’s fourth largest online market, Japan offers international brands and retailers an opportunity to reach a highly concentrated segment of digitally-savvy shoppers—and not just because the country’s population is more than triple that of same-sized California. The nation’s e-commerce industry has more than doubled in size in the past decade, with digital spending on clothing, accessories, toys and hobby-related products alone reaching a combined $40 billion.

Of course, each instance of cross-border trade comes with its own set of unique challenges, and Japan is no different. There are language translations to handle, cultural sensibilities to factor in, tariffs and duties to calculate and more. Still, with a growing array of marketplace options to help ease these and other challenges, the profit potential is significant.

To get a better understanding of the Japanese e-commerce opportunity, let’s take a quick look at some market basics.

How can you sell internationally to Japan?

Currently, the best way to get started as an international seller in Japan is through key marketplaces. Nearly all online shoppers use Rakuten Ichiba, Amazon Japan and Yahoo Shopping, which together dominate the country’s e-commerce industry.

Better yet, each of these channels offers options to help simplify the many complexities of cross-border trade.

Rakuten Ichiba, for example, provides dedicated English-speaking consultants to help sellers customize branded storefronts, communicate with customers and create targeted advertising campaigns. The Rakuten Super Logistics (RSL) program is also available to sellers in need of a hassle-free option for fulfilling Rakuten Ichiba orders.

https://www.channeladvisor.com/blog/marketplaces/...r-trade-to-japan/  

ChannelAdvisor Announces New Integration with Rakuten Ichiba, One of Japan’s Largest Online Shopping Malls

MELBOURNE, Australia, May 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ – ChannelAdvisor Corporation (NYSE: ECOM), a leading provider of cloud-based e-commerce solutions that enable brands and retailers to increase global sales, today announced its collaboration with Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten’s marketplace in Japan. With this added support for one of Japan’s largest online shopping malls, ChannelAdvisor customers now have another option for reaching consumers in the dynamic Japanese market.

This new collaboration with Rakuten adds to ChannelAdvisor’s premier network of strategic partners and expansive support for established and emerging marketplaces worldwide. By listing their products on Rakuten Ichiba, brands and retailers can unlock their selling potential and reach millions of online shoppers in one of the world’s largest economies.

"ChannelAdvisor strives to help brands and retailers worldwide accelerate their sales. By supporting their marketplace presence in Japan, ChannelAdvisor can help position brands and retailers for e-commerce success," said Simon Clarkson, ChannelAdvisor Managing Director, APAC. "With more than 100 million members in Japan, Rakuten can provide another way to connect with consumers online and capture new audiences."

Brands and retailers can use the ChannelAdvisor platform for a wide range of capabilities to help manage their Rakuten presence, including optimising product data, simplifying inventory management, and streamlining order management1. ChannelAdvisor supports a range of popular categories including but not limited to: home, furniture, apparel, cosmetics, and consumer electronics.
"We understand how important global expansion is to growth in e-commerce, and are excited about the opportunities Rakuten Ichiba can offer our customers," said Clarkson.

https://www.fnarena.com/index.php/2021/05/14/...nline-shopping-malls/  

Rakuten Ichiba

Since Rakuten Ichiba’s foundation in 1997 in Tokyo, Rakuten has grown to become the go-to shopping destination for millions of Japanese consumers. The online marketplace is a pure third-party seller ecosystem founded with the principle that online shopping should be entertaining and highly personalised. While Rakuten Ichiba has become a global marketplace, Japan remains its most profitable territory, with a third of the national ecommerce flowing through the platform and over 53,000 merchants selling actively on it.

The platform is the fifth most visited website in Japan and ranks as the third top online marketplace in the territory – Rakuten records over 521.1 million visits per month. Compared to other marketplaces where consumers prefer to purchase via computer/laptop, Rakuten sees most of the online sales coming from the app. Mickey Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten, reported: “Since I talked about it back then, the explosive growth of mobile data usage hasn’t slowed down […]. On Rakuten Ichiba, some 76.5% of sales are already coming through mobile devices.”

According to the latest news, this is just the beginning of Rakuten’s empire that saw a 50% year on year growth in its gross merchandise volume (GMS) in 2020. “I’ve always had this rule about ones and threes. Once we hit 100 million yen (in GMS), our next goal was 300 million, then 1 billion, 3 billion, then 10 billion,” said Mikitani. “For our next annual GMS target of 10 trillion yen, I’d love to see Rakuten Ichiba get there by 2030.”

https://www.arcade.global/blog/...se-ecommerce-features-marketplaces/  

Publicité Rakuten Mobile

25.07.2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp7l66L0_u4  

In der Quelle in 7057 kann man lesen:

"At the same time, the telco’s customer base and revenues are growing. Q1 turnover came in at 56.7 billion yen, up 45% year-on-year, and as of 11 May it had clocked up 4.1 million customer applications, the only metric it provides on that front. Customer applications have accelerated this year – the company had just over 2 million at the end of last year – and it attributes this to the launch of its newest plan, UN-LIMIT IV in January.“

https://telecoms.com/509763/...e-eyes-tremendous-profitability-ahead/

Danach hat Rakuten Mobile in den ersten 4,5 Monaten von 2021 die Zahl der Subscriber um m.E.  sensationelle 2,1 Millionen gesteigert – also im Monatsschnitt um 467.000. Das habe ich allerdings nicht in die Zukunft extrapoliert, weil wegen des Auslaufenes der Gewährung eines Freijahres viele noch aufgesprungen sind. Allerdings gibt es auch ein Nachfolgerprogramm mit drei Freimonaten und vor allem die Einbeziehung von Apple’s Iphones in das Angebot, und zwar als günstiges Kaufangebot und m.E. noch viel wichtiger, das Rakuten Mobile jetzt auch auf Iphones überhaupt läuft, was bisher – was ich auch nicht wusste – bisher nicht der Fall war. Dazu muss man wissen, dass Apple bei den qualitätsbewussten Japanern einen Marktanteil von ca. 50% hat.

Bei meiner Aussage, dass 3 Monate nach dem 11. Mail, wo die Subscriberzahl bei 4,1 Millionen lag, im Laufe des August bei 5 Millionen liegen würde, habe ich also die bis zum 11. Mai vorhandene monatliche Zugewinnzahl von 467.000 auf 300.000 reduziert. Und für die dann noch folgenden 4,5 Monate habe ich für die Steigerung von 5 Millionen auf 6 Millionen die Zugewinnzahl pro Monat weiter auf 222.222 reduziert, weil der Iphone-Effekt abklingen könnte. Vielleicht habe ich dabei vielleicht sogar die Zahlen zu stark reduziert, da mit zunehmender Netzabdeckung Rakuten in weiteren Gebieten attraktiver wird und der Vertrieb durch Japan Post im Laufe von 2021 ins Laufen kommen wird.
 

01.07.2021

Altiostar, Intel, and VMware disaggregate the RAN into a flexible, high-performance stack with open interfaces

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv72zRQx4oU
 

Sercomm-Altiostar-Rakuten deployment basing on Qualcomm

Sercomm is using Qualcomm’s FSM 9016 chipset for its design. That’s the small cell chipset that Sercomm used as it partnered with Altiostar to develop a vRAN small cell solution that went on to debut in Rakuten’s network in Japan. The Sercomm-Altiostar-Rakuten deployment looks quite similar to the Sercomm-Mavenir-Vodafone plan.

In Rakuten’s case it said it would be able to migrate from the 4G small cell to 5G by updating the DU part of the build. Vodafone also said that the small cells would supply 4G “initially” – clearly hinting at a 5G upgrade path. It also added that the disaggregated elements of the solution would be able to interface with products from other vendors.

https://the-mobile-network.com/2021/07/...odafone-and-mavenir-and-bt/
 

AltioStar Networks Assigned Patent for Multi-Technology Aggregation Architecture
Jun 01, 2021 - Targeted News Service

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 1 -- AltioStar Networks, Tewksbury, Massachusetts, has been assigned a patent (No. 11,013,002, initially filed Feb. 6, 2018) developed by three co-inventors for "multi-technology aggregation architecture for long term evolution communications systems." The co-inventors are Jung Ah Lee, Pittstown, New Jersey, Si Nguyen, Winchester, Massachusetts, and Shabbir A. Bagasrawala, Lexington, Massachusetts.

https://relationshipscience.com/news/story/...or-multi-techn-25481040  

S&P Downgrades Rakuten Group to Junk Status

  Tokyo, July 27 (Jiji Press)--S&P Global Ratings has cut its long-term issuer credit rating on Japanese internet services company Rakuten Group Inc. <4755> by one notch to BB plus, which is deemed to be a speculative or "junk" grade rating.

  The U.S. credit rating agency said Monday that it expects Rakuten's financial standing to "worsen substantially" due to upfront investments in its mobile businesses.  

Dollar Eigenkapital - überwiegend durch Japan Post - überrascht mich das doch ein wenig.

Wenn die japanische Agentur nicht mitzieht, hat das lediglich für eine Kreditaufnahme in Dollar Bedeutung, die aber bei Rakuten kaum eine Rolle spielt.

Negativ sehe ich allerdings, dass mancher Fonds aufgrund seiner Anlagevorschriften nicht mehr investieren könnte - allerdings sind die bei Rakuten eh' dünn investiert.  

Nachvollziehen, dass langfristig die finanzielle Stabilität leidet, kann ich allerdings nicht - denn die Investitionen  von Rakuten Mobile sind inzwischen fast abgeschlossen. Den Kosten (vor allem Abschreibungen) werden im Mobile-Bereich zwar insbesondere in 2021 und auch noch in 2022 noch  nicht genügend Einnahmen gegenüber, was zu Verlusten im Mobile-Bereich führen wird, aber der Cash Flow von Rakuten Mobile wird sehr viel früher positiv, da die Ausgaben in Höhe der Abschreibungen bereits getätigt worden sind.  

Erste Schätzungen: Rakuten legt die Bilanz zum abgelaufenen Quartal vor

Rakuten wird voraussichtlich am 11.08.2021 das Zahlenwerk zum am 30.06.2021 abgelaufenen Jahresviertel vorstellen.

Die Schätzungen von 2 Analysten belaufen sich beim EPS auf durchschnittlich -0,309 USD je Aktie. Im Vorjahresquartal hatten noch 0,054 USD je Aktie in den Büchern gestanden.
Die Schätzungen von 5 Analysten gehen bezüglich des Umsatzes für das abgelaufene Quartal im Schnitt von 3,63 Milliarden USD aus – das entspräche einem Plus von 11,32 Prozent im Vergleich zum Vorjahresviertel, in dem 3,26 Milliarden USD in den Büchern standen.
Für das Fiskaljahr rechnen 13 Analysten nun im Schnitt mit einem Verlust je Aktie von -0,863 USD im Vergleich zu -0,797 USD im Vorjahr. Den Umsatz sehen 12 Analysten durchschnittlich bei 15,08 Milliarden USD, gegenüber 13,81 Milliarden USD im vorigen Jahr.

https://www.finanzen.net/nachricht/aktien/...nen-quartal-vor-10372681
 

JULY 27, 2021 16.49 EUROPE/LONDON BY CHRIS DZIADUL

The AVOD platform Rakuten TV has launched a free linear channel which focuses on original and inspirational sports documentaries.

Known as Rakuten Stories, it joins an offer which reaches over 90 million households, clocking up over 5 billion minutes of free content watched and generating more than 1.5 billion ad impressions in 2021.

Rakuten Stories follows the success of the ‘Rakuten Stories section’ on Rakuten’s online and app presence.

The channel will be available via Samsung and LG Smart TVs and will be rolled out in multiple territories including the UK, Spain, France, Italy and Germany.

HTTPS://WWW.BROADBANDTVNEWS.COM/2021/07/27/...IGINAL-CONTENT-CHANNEL/  

HTTPS://WWW.LIFEPR.DE/INAKTIV/RAKUTEN-TV-EUROPE/...ANTEN/BOXID/858615
 

Telecom Egypt is the latest network operator to put some Open RAN tech through its paces. It is setting up a Proof of Concept (PoC) with Altiostar, Cisco and the Telecom Infra Project (TIP). The PoC will use radio units based on the Evenstar reference design developed by a Facebook-led group as part of TIP’s OpenRAN program, as well as vRAN software from Altiostar for the distributed and centralized units and Cisco edge compute and fronthaul transport technology. “OpenRAN plays an important role in helping reduce costs and increase flexibility and component-level efficiency for operators globally,” noted Telecom Egypt CEO Adel Hamed in a press release about the PoC. “Our hope is that early positive experiences will lead to greater commercial adoption of these initial products which will, in turn, help expand the network of OpenRAN suppliers,” he added.

https://www.telecomtv.com/content/open-ran/...t-sk-telecom-tim-41930/
 

https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/07/19/...amp;utm_campaign=article  

Addition to my last posting: I can't understand that the analysts of S&P can't understand, that in the near future the cash flow from operations will be bigger than the investions, because the big investions of Rakute Mobile are done.