Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

"We have accumulated rich and diverse user data through our services

The wide-ranging services provided in the Rakuten Ecosystem allow us to collect e-commerce data as well as financial and communications-related data in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, enabling us to analyze and respond effectively to the needs of our users. Because this data is tied to a unified Rakuten ID across our services, we are able to conduct comprehensive data analysis which can be used as a foundation for innovative marketing strategies. As consumers continue to demand personalized solutions to their diverse needs, we expect that further developments in the usage of big data and artificial intelligence will enable us to better tailor our services to individual consumers, making our ecosystem even more attractive."

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/...shx?App=Prospectus&FileID=51822
 

1 day ago

Take Rakuten Mobile as an example. While we started by serving customers in Japan, we are now working to transform the global telecom industry through the Rakuten Communications Platform, offering our innovative network architecture to customers around the world.

At this time of critical global expansion, our three objectives for first launching Englishnization are as important as ever:

1. For business growth: Competing in a globalized world
Simply put, companies that don’t globalize will not be able to compete in the economy of the future. Japan used to account for almost 15% of the global economy. Now it’s closer to 5%. And in the future, it will probably be 2-3%. Looking forward 20 years from now, we will need to be global to continue to grow and compete. It’s not a choice — it’s something we have to do.
Even for those working at businesses primarily serving local customers in Japan, I encourage everyone to keep working to improve their English. At the end of the day, every business has the potential to have global impact.What we are doing in mobile is a tremendous example of this. Not only are we working to democratize mobile in Japan by bringing prices down for customers but because of our innovative

2. For the team: Creating a “one team” culture
Many of our employees joined the company because they see Rakuten as a global leader, not just a Japan leader. This includes engineers and other experts from around the world. I don’t want to draw a line between Japanese and non-Japanese employees. We have to be one team: That is why I want everyone to be able to communicate in English.
Of course, I’m not saying it has to be perfect English. I, for one, make many grammatical errors. But that’s fine. I don’t worry about it. As long as we can understand each other, we don’t need “native” English to do great things together.

3. For the individual: Developing global perspectives
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I hope that through Englishnization we can help open the eyes of our all of our employees; to help broaden their perspectives about what’s going on in the world. Not only is it important for us as employees of a global tech leader; it’s important to us as global citizens.

https://rakuten.today/blog/...shnization-embracing-global-vision.html  

https://www.ecommercenext.org/...social-features-to-its-official-app/  

Ligado Networks Moving Forward with L Band Private Networks

BY J. SHARPE SMITH, SENIOR EDITOR

April 2, 2021

Last year was a great year for the Ligado Networks, according to Scott Wiener, Ligado’s chief marketing and strategy officer. In mid-April, it received a unanimous bipartisan approval from the FCC, determining that it can deploy a terrestrial network in the L-band, which is between 1 GHz and 2 GHz.
In October 2020, Ligado Networks announced that it had raised nearly $4 billion in new capital. Led by JPMorgan Chase & Co., Ligado secured $3.85 billion from existing and new investors.

“What’s really great about that is we now have the service rules in place, and we know how to put the spectrum to use,” Wiener said in an interview with Mike Dano, Light Reading, during the Competitive Carriers Association’s Mobile Carrier Show in late March. “That is what really brings us to look forward and to be advancing and developing the 5G mobile private network solution.”

This year has started out pretty well, as well, with the signing of an agreement with Rakuten Mobile, to use the Rakuten Communications Platform, which is an end-to-end cloud native, software-centric, open RAN-based mobile network, as the blueprint for Ligado’s 5G mobile private network solution.
The Rakuten agreement is the cornerstone of Ligado’s efforts to create a 5G vendor ecosystem. The companies will work with equipment ecosystem partners and vendors to establish a timeline for the implementation of network trials.

“We think it’s just a great combination, taking Ligado’s licensed spectrum and Rakuten’s open RAN mobile technology,” Wiener said. “We think it’s just a perfect product for the enterprise space, so we are really excited about it.”

Wiener said the trials are key to demonstrating 5G mobile private networks, which are going to increasingly important to companies as they undergo digital transformations to modernize their operations.

“5G mobile private networks is a market opportunity that’s poised for adoption,” he said. “We are going to chase after this identified market opportunity. We are developing a product, and we are inviting others to participate with us and to innovate.”
The greatest opportunities that Wiener said he sees right now are in vertical markets, such as manufacturing, healthcare and energy.

https://www.aglmediagroup.com/...orward-with-l-band-private-networks/

 

Before the deal with Japan Post and others

Mar 4, 2021

In response to the announcement of cheaper mobile plans by other mobile network operators, or MNOs, Rakuten cut its pricing plan for users who use less than 20GB of data per month. While the price cut on mobile is negative for the short-term profitability of the segment, we believe it will be beneficial to Rakuten’s entire ecosystem in the longer term as the cheaper pricing enables Rakuten to increase the number of MNO subscribers, and the company can encourage new users to try other services in its ecosystem. Despite the intensifying competition on each business, we believe that Rakuten will retain its userbase as the combination of its products such as e-commerce, financial, and mobile services will be convenient for users.

We raise Rakuten's five-year revenue growth forecast to 13.2% from 10.8% per year mainly owing to the better outlook on e-commerce and mobile businesses. We assume Rakuten’s MNO business subscribers will reach 5 million by the end of 2021, which is raised from 3.6 million in the previous forecast, and as a result, we expect a positive impact on Rakuten's entire ecosystem. The cross-use ratio, proportion of users who have used more than one service over the past 12 months among all active users, improved to 73% in fourth-quarter 2020 from 67.3% in fourth-quarter 2017, which suggests that the majority of Rakuten users enjoy multiple services, creating the stickiness to its ecosystem.

https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xtks/4755/quote
 

Leverage our cutting-edge MNO network to bring new users into the Rakuten Ecosystem and increase cross-use by existing users.

In April 2020, Rakuten Mobile commenced commercial operations for its MNO network, which is the world’s first end-to-end, fully virtualized, cloud-native mobile network, and we began offering a high-speed 5G service in September 2020. Due to the fully virtualized nature of our network, we believe that we are able to operate with approximately 30% lower operating expenses (due mainly to reduced field maintenance, operations center, rent and electricity expenses) and approximately 40% lower ongoing capital investments (due mainly to reduced hardware and deployment costs) compared to traditional MNO networks. These advantages enable us to offer wireless services to our customers at a lower cost and significantly below historical pricing levels for MNO services in Japan.

Until April 7, 2021, for the first three million customers for our UN-LIMIT service, we offered an introductory campaign that waived the monthly fee for the first year of service. In part due to the success of this campaign, we were able to increase the number of applications for new subscribers from an accumulated total of approximately 1 million as of the end of June 2020 to over 3 million as of March 9, 2021 and over 3.9 million as of April 8, 2021. To continue to appeal to new mobile subscribers (including subscribers that are new to the Rakuten Ecosystem as well as existing users of our other services), we launched our latest service plan, Rakuten UN-LIMIT VI, on April 1, 2021, which features an innovative tiered pricing structure with lower priced data plans than our competitors, and on April 8, 2021, we announced a new campaign that waives the first three months of UN-LIMIT VI fees for new Rakuten Mobile subscribers. Going forward, we believe our significant price advantage will enable us to acquire additional new subscribers that will subsequently cross-use additional services within the Rakuten Ecosystem and also increase the transaction value of existing users of our other services. For example, we recently introduced a campaign that provided Rakuten Mobile subscribers with additional Rakuten Super Points when making purchases on Rakuten Ichiba, and we have found that users of Rakuten Mobile tend to increase their spending on Rakuten Ichiba. Our data shows that users who made a purchase on Rakuten Ichiba between December 2019 and May 2020 and then joined Rakuten Mobile increased their subsequent Rakuten Ichiba spending by 44% on average during the period from June 2020 to December 2020 (as compared to a 13% increase in Rakuten Ichiba spending by users that did not join Rakuten Mobile). Additionally, our data as of September 2020 shows that 15% of Rakuten Mobile applicants are new Rakuten users, 35% of which have subsequently used a different Rakuten service (which includes new users using multiple services, including 25%, 10% and 5% of such new users that have subsequently used Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten Card and Rakuten Bank, respectively).

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/...shx?App=Prospectus&FileID=51822  

¥532 billion mobile-investments are done since the year ended December 31, 2018 and the other part is no problem with the following finanace-plan

We also plan to continue to make significant capital investments to accelerate the expansion of coverage for our MNO network, and we currently expect that our 4G network will cover approximately 96% of the Japanese population by summer 2021 (as compared to the initial target of March 31, 2026 5that we previously submitted to Japan’s regulatory authorities). In order to improve quality with a higher density of base stations and to respond to the expected increase in users, we plan to construct a total of approximately 44,000 4G outdoor base stations (as compared to the initially planned 27,397 base stations). We expect the total capital investments for coverage infrastructure to consist of approximately ¥200 billion for 5G-related infrastructure expenses and approximately ¥600 billion for 4G-related infrastructure expenses as well as investments to improve the density of base station coverage for our 4G network that we expect to result in additional expenses of approximately 30-40% of such 4G-related infrastructure expenses. Our total cumulative capital investments in the Mobile segment since the year ended December 31, 2018 have been approximately ¥532 billion, which includes ¥126 billion of right-of-use assets, funded with the corresponding lease liabilities and accounted for in accordance with IFRS 16. We plan to fund the capital investments through a combination of self-funding by Rakuten Mobile from asset financings, including lease financings and securitization of receivables, and capital injections to Rakuten Mobile from Rakuten Group, Inc., which includes the proceeds of our ¥182 billion domestic subordinated bond issuance in 2018 and our ¥120 billion domestic subordinated bond issuance in 2020, the proceeds from the third-party allotments completed on March 29 and March 31, 2021 and a portion of the proceeds of this offering and the concurrent offering of the Euro notes. See “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Recent Developments—Capital Raised Through Third-Party Allotments of Shares” and “Use of Proceeds.”

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/...shx?App=Prospectus&FileID=51822  

Eigentlich wollte man im Mobile-Bereich knapp 8 Milliarden Dollar bis 2026 ausgegeben. In Abänderung des ursprünglichen Plans hat man sich entschieden, die Durchführung der Investitionen zu komprimieren und die bis 2026 geplanten Investitionen schon in 2021 durchgezogen zu haben und die Investitionssumme zudem noch von knapp 8 Milliarden Dollar auf 10 Milliarden Dollar zu erhöhen.

Durchfinanziert ist trotzdem alles - von der letzten Dollar/Euro-Anleihe wird sogar nur ein Teil benötigt.  

Our ongoing capital investments in Rakuten Mobile’s MNO network have had a significant impact on our results of operations in recent years. For the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, our capital investments for our Mobile segment were ¥187.2 billion and ¥336.0 billion, respectively.

We currently expect that Rakuten Mobile will become profitable by the end of the year ending December 31, 2023.

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/...shx?App=Prospectus&FileID=51822  

Josephine Nieh of 55Haitao explains why now is the time to put China on your radar

By Rakuten Advertising | April 21, 2021

Rakuten Advertising recently sat down with Josephine Nieh, Director of Strategic Partnerships at 55Haitao, to talk about riding the wave of the rapidly booming affiliate industry in China. In this interview, Josephine explains why now is the time to put China on your radar.

Tell us a little bit about your brand.

Josephine: 55Haitao has been in the affiliate industry for over 10 years and we are proud to say that we are a Platinum Publisher on the Rakuten Advertising Affiliate Network. We are the largest loyalty site in China that not only offers cashback, but also rich content for our highly engaged users. Our newsletter reaches 5 million customers and our site garners an average of 2.5 million impressions daily.
Our top performing advertiser verticals include beauty, luxury, fashion, sneakers and streetwear. Three quarters of our audience is based in China, but we do see traffic from other parts of the world including the US, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and other regions across Asia-Pacific. Most users are aged between 20-40 years and skewed towards a female audience.

What sets you apart from publishers in your category?

Josephine: We’re not just a loyalty site. We have a full-time, world class editorial team that constantly stays on top of new trends and new brands, making recommendations to our very engaged user base daily. We are able to reach consumers in multiple stages of their shopping journey, whether they are simply researching and being inspired by new products or committing to purchase, all on one site. Add together compelling cash back rates plus persuasive content and you’ve got yourself a sale.

How do you help advertisers add value and drive incrementality?

Josephine: Let me give you an example. Over the years we have built a strong partnership with Clinique by running exclusive campaigns with competitive cash back rates that resonate well with our users. We provide quarterly placement packages to further promote these offers. We also frequently monitor campaign performance and customer feedback and share this information with Clinique to further improve the program. As a result, we saw year-to-date sales and orders increase by 105% and 49% respectively compared to the year before.
Our team also worked with Clinique to try content seeding through influencers and live stream channels which helped boost brand awareness across our audience base, increasing click-through rate by 50% year-over-year.

What excites you about the affiliate marketing industry and where it’s headed? What new innovations will we see from you this year?

Josephine: The e-commerce industry is undoubtedly growing at a rapid pace around the world, but last year, China was the only major market to report economic growth. We are seeing even more opportunities within the affiliate industry in this market as it continues to flourish.
At 55Haitao, we plan to further expand our teams in each department to cater for this growth. We aim to amplify our collaboration with micro and macro influencers, particularly those on China’s top social platforms such as Little Red Book, Douyin and Bilibili. Through this, we are confident that we will be able to drive more new-to-file customers within the Asia-Pacific region than ever before.

Why did you choose to partner with Rakuten Advertising?

Josephine: Rakuten Advertising has a simple and user-friendly platform for publishers. Its reporting tool provides the data we need to easily optimise campaigns. More importantly, Rakuten Advertising’s account management team is extremely dedicated and knowledgeable, and the network services the best-in-class beauty and fashion brands from around the world.

https://blog.rakutenadvertising.com/en-au/news/...ight-55haitao-2021/  

MAY 10, 2021

https://global.rakuten.com/corp/innovation/rnn/2021/2101_006/  

Rakuten Medical, a Beacon of Light in the War on Cancer

What have you achieved so far?

Rakuten Medical is developing the Illuminox platform as a technology consisting of a drug, device and other related components. Rakuten Medical’s lead drug is called ASP-1929 — a conjugate of the tumor-targeting immunotherapy drug, Cetuximab, and a light-activatable dye. ASP-1929 works by binding to receptors expressed by head and neck cancers and becomes activated when exposed to non-thermal red light. This activation has been shown to induce cancer cell death and tumor necrosis in preclinical studies, and therapies developed on Illuminox may also result in local and systemic activation of the patients’ own immune response.

Rakuten Medical Japan K.K. has received early conditional marketing approval in Japan from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare for ASP-1929 to treat unresectable locally advanced or recurrent head and neck cancer. Illuminox therapies have not yet been approved in any other country. Headquartered in the United States, with 2 locations, Rakuten Medical has locations in 4 other countries, including Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, and Taiwan.

Are you seeking funding? IPO? Partners?

Rakuten Medical is currently a privately-held company. However, the Company is always interested in speaking with potential business partners.

What do you plan to achieve in the next 2-3 years?

Rakuten Medical will continue advancing its research pipeline to provide innovative cancer therapies as soon as possible. The Company is currently conducting a global Phase 3 multi-center clinical trial with ASP-1929 in patients with recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Moreover, early phase clinical trials investigating ASP-1929 in combination with anti-PD1, in multiple tumor types, are currently planned or underway (refer to www.ClinicalTrials.gov). In addition, Rakuten Medical is conducting additional early-stage research for investigative molecules such as RM-1995.

https://petacrunch.com/2021/02/12/...n-of-light-in-the-war-on-cancer/  

https://sg.jobsdb.com/Rakuten-Mobile-Singapore-Pte.-Ltd.-jobs
(page 1 -5)  

Six reasons you should choose Rakuten Marketing:

The organization is expanding to provide the best Omni experience.

Awards say it all – performance marketing award, best attribution solution, digital player’s club power player, affiliated network, and much.

Number 1 company in providing customer assistance.

They are the leaders. Rakuten Marketing Growth is always relegating the industry. Its growth is continuing to beat the industries year after year.

Online and offline, cross-channel inconsistency- The journey of the customers does not stop online. They have powerful tools to track customer experience.

The company is backed by a leading Internet power player.

https://webappick.com/...our-online-customers-with-rakuten-marketing/
 

Rakuten Ichiba increased growth-rate of the number of merchants in 2020 strong

The total number of merchants is one of the factors affecting the number of transactions on several of our websites, including Rakuten Ichiba. We have benefited from a virtuous circle, in which a certain scale of merchants and items for sale has attracted an increasing number of users to Rakuten Ichiba and an increasing number of users has kept our marketplace attractive to our merchants. We are now focused on maintaining a healthy and secure marketplace and increasing Domestic E-commerce GMS per merchant
The following table shows the number of merchants on Rakuten Ichiba as of the dates indicated.

As of December 31, 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Number of Rakuten Ichiba merchants 44.528 45.619 47.007 49.887 53.794

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/...shx?App=Prospectus&FileID=51822  

Growth-rate of shopping transaction value through Rakuten Card increased 2020 strong

The total value of the transactions made using credit cards issued by Rakuten Card and the shopping revolving balance from Rakuten Card cardholders are important indicators of our business performance as Rakuten Card receives the majority of its revenue from fees and commissions from credit card transactions and interest income from revolving loans.

The following table shows the shopping transaction value, including transactions outside of the Rakuten group, both online and offline, and shopping revolving balance in our Rakuten Card business, as of the dates and for the periods indicated.

As of and for the year ended December 31, 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (in billions of yen)
Rakuten Card shopping transaction value ¥4,997.6 ¥ 6,073.8 ¥7,422.4 ¥ 9,456.8 ¥ 11,469.1
Rakuten Card shopping revolving balance 373.7 424.9 517.2 614.0 619.8

Another important indicator of the growth of our Rakuten Card business is the total number of card holders, as our revenue increases as the number of total card holders increases.

The following table shows the number of Rakuten Card holders as of the dates indicated:

As of December 31, 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (in millions)
Number of Rakuten Card holders . 13.5 15.0 16.6 19.0 21.6

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/...shx?App=Prospectus&FileID=51822  

Dass das, was ich in den vorstehenden Postings an Positiven angeführt habe, aber nicht hilft, einen Verlust zu vermeiden wenn man in drei Jahren ca. 10 Milliarden US-Dollar in Rakuten Mobile investiert, sollte auch klar sein.

Selbst wenn der weitaus größte Teil dieser 10 Milliarden nicht direkt als Aufwand gebucht wird, sondern nur über Abschreibungen teilweise zu Aufwand wird - aber zunächst stehen denen nur kaum (wegen eines Freijahrs und noch geringer Subscriber-Zahlen) wenige Erlöse gegenüber. Dieses Problem löst sich erst über steigende Subscriber-Zahlen nach und nach auf.  

Why telecom equipment market might get localised in 5G era?

Kosei Takiishi, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner says that telecom service providers might prefer local vendors in the future which will lead to each major country having its own set of local players

Manu Kaushik | April 2, 2021 | Updated 17:56 IST

Gone are the days when telecom equipment market was controlled by a handful of players like Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei, Samsung, ZTE, Cisco and NEC. For a long time, these proprietary vendors controlled over 80 per cent of the global telecom equipment markets. But things have changed in the past few years.

A bunch of players have entered the market providing specific solutions. For instance, companies like Mavenir, Altiostar, Parallel Wireless, and others provide software solutions. At the same time, hyperscalers like Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft have expanded their presence in this space by providing cloud, networking, and internet services. Finally, Rakuten, Reliance Jio, Tech Mahindra and others have emerged as system integrators who are joining hardware and software pieces together.

Experts say that a new trend is emerging which is going to make the telecom equipment market localised. Kosei Takiishi, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner says that telecom service providers might prefer local vendors in the future which will lead to each major country having its own set of local players. "There are initiatives being taken in Japan, Vietnam and India on these lines," he says.

https://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/telecom/...era/story/435591.html  

We view the trading value of our Rakuten Securities online securities business as an important indicator of the strength of the business and our competitive position vis-à-vis other online and full service online securities businesses because our online brokerage commissions depend on the total value of the trades made per day or per month by our securities customers and our commission rates. In addition, we generate a large portion of our Rakuten Securities revenue from brokerage commissions on margin transactions and interest income on margin trading. The following table shows the steady increase in domestic stock brokerage trading value and foreign exchange trading value from the year ended December 31, 2016 to the year ended December 31, 2020.

For the year ended December 31, 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (in billions of yen)

Rakuten Sec. domestic stock brokerage trading value .¥ 40,956 ¥ 47,349 ¥ 54,619 ¥ 53,173 ¥89,813

Rakuten Securities foreign exchange trading value 377,163 303,569 268,558 247,148 457,234

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/...shx?App=Prospectus&FileID=51822  

Following the launch of commercial operations for Rakuten Mobile’s MNO network in April 2020, the number of applications for new subscribers increased from an accumulated total of approximately 1 million as of the end of June 2020 to over 3 million as of March 9, 2021 and over 3.9 million as of April 8, 2021.

The results of operations for our telecommunications business is also affected by the level of expenditures for the development of our network and acquisition of new subscribers. We have made significant capital investments for the development of our MNO network, including the installation of physical base stations and the development of network technologies. For the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2020, our capital investments for our Mobile segment were ¥187.2 billion and ¥336.0 billion, respectively. For the year ended December 31, 2019, capital investments for our Mobile segment consisted of ¥163.6 billion of property, plant and equipment and ¥23.6 billion of intangible assets. For the year ended December 31, 2020, capital investments for our Mobile segment consisted of ¥298.2 billion of property, plant and equipment and ¥37.8 billion of intangible assets. These capital investments have affected the results of operations of our telecommunications business through increased depreciation expenses and we expect that these and anticipated additional increases in capital investments will result in an increase in depreciation expenses. We also incur significant sales and marketing expenses to promote the capabilities of our network and acquire new users.

https://links.sgx.com/FileOpen/...shx?App=Prospectus&FileID=51822
 

Gewinnzone kommen, wenn die hohen Gewinne aus sämtlichen Nicht-Mobile-Bereichen (vor allem bei Fintech) ausreichen, um die sehr hohen Verluste bei Rakuten Mobile auszugleichen.

Dazu muss Rakuten Mobile nicht in die Gewinnzone kommen, aber der Abbau der Verluste über steigende Erlöse aus steigenden Teilnehmerzahlen muss eben die Verluste aus dem Mobile-Bereich so weit reduzieren, dass diese nicht mehr die hohen Gewinne aus den anderen Bereichen übersteigen. Ich gehe davon aus, dass dies für das Gesamtjahr 2022 schon so sein könnte.

Beim Cash Flow wird das in 2022 mit Sicherheit schon der Fall sein, und zwar dann sogar sehr brachial, wenn nur noch geringe Investitionen zu tätigen sind und die über die Preise hereingeholten hohen Abschreibungen in der Kasse klingeln.  

Quartal weiter steigen, weil die Abschreibungen durch die weiteren hohen Mobile-Investitionen weiter zugenommen haben und noch zunehmen. Ab dem dritten Quartal stehen den hohen Abschreibungen dann erste Erlöszuwächse aus dem Mobile-Bereich gegenüberstehen.

Hinsichtlich des Antizipierens dieser Entwicklung bin ich unsicher und wohl niemand weiß m.E., wie das ablaufen wird. Vorteilhaft ist momentan jedenfalls, dass die anderen Bereiche das sehr gut abfedern. Langfristig orientierte Institutionelle werden das sicher antizipieren, manche Privatanleger auch weniger und es hängt auch davon ab, wie man das bei Rakuten zu kommunizieren gedenkt. Hinsichtlich der Kommunikation weiß ich auch nicht so recht, was uns da geboten wird - einerseits war die in der Vergangenheit nicht besonders gut, weil man keine Interesse daran haben musste und hatte, will man allerdings einen weltweiten Erfolg der Rakuten Communications Platform ist die Kommunikation von Erfolgen eine wichtige Voraussetzung.  

By Jason Inocencio May 10, 2021

One of those streaming services that Malinao points out is backed by Rakuten itself, and it is the Asian entertainment platform that is Viki. “Viki has different targeting capabilities that allows brands to be more tailored when it comes to targeting their users,” he notes. “So if I am, for example, a lifestyle fashion brand and I want to target users who are more females, maybe I want to target content or genres that are more female-skewed. That might mean more drama or romantic comedy or romance-related type of content in the Philippines. Viki also allows users or brands to target users based on key cities.”

“We know for a fact that Globe Telecom would be stronger in key cities like Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao,” he gives as an example. “Then I want to target those key cities through geo-targeting. So connected TV really goes beyond just spraying and praying. It allows brands to be right, to be more targeted, and to be more tailored, to be able to deliver the message and to create, to deliver greater impact across their advertising campaigns.”

“Viki houses thousands of Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese TV dramas, movies, and TV series,” Malinao bares. “Viki is available across multiple platforms. Aside from it being having an ad-free type of video-on-demand or ad-free subscription, It allows users to have access to these thousands of libraries through the touch of their smartphones, through their desktop, or through connected TV.”

“One of the things that we’re proud of that we boast of with Viki is that we have a very connected audience,” he bares. “So connected in a sense that they are users of their smartphones, they watch it on the desktop, and they watch it on connected TV. On top of that, they are very socially active so on the platform itself, it allows users to leave comments about the TV show, live ratings, chat with their fellow watchers, or even do the subtitles for us on the platform. We have about 200 languages, and all of these are translated for us by our avid fans, by our users.”

With more and more content going on streaming services, the words “content is king” have never been truer. And with a library resplendent in shows and movies from across Asia, what perhaps helps Viki stand apart from its competitors is the interactivity that it allows. With its users able to leave comments and interact with other members of the audience, there is a sense of community among Viki users even as they share their affinity for the series and movies that they enjoy using their own devices. Since leaving our homes continues to be a difficult proposition, this feature of Viki can actually relieve some anxieties that have been built up over the past year.

https://adobomagazine.com/featured/...-viki-from-other-ott-platforms/  

Rakuten and Radcom

RADCOM Ltd. (NASDAQ:RDCM) Q1 2021 Results Earnings Conference Call May 11, 2021 8:00 AM ET
We are also focusing in our partnership with Rakuten in Japan as they aggressively roll out the world's first end-to-end virtualized network deployed on a nationwide scale. We continue supporting Rakuten with their 4G and 5G network. In addition, Rakuten plans to launch a standalone 5G network in the second quarter of 2021. In preparation for this, we have moved to the RADCOM ACE software implementation to monitor their standalone 5G services.

During the first quarter, TelecomTV published an interview with Rakuten mobile CTO on their nationwide rollout and their transition to 5G and the importance of RADCOM's solution in supporting them on this journey. As Rakuten mobile CTO stated in the interview, assurance is vital when rolling out greenfield networks, allowing Rakuten analyze events in real time, diagnose them and improve the network, but most importantly, it provides real time data about the true customer experience.
In addition to rolling out software releases for standalone 5G. RADCOM solution is also being integrated into Rakuten's communication platform, which is already being marketed to operators worldwide and deployed in Japan.

Given that Rakuten is a leading pioneer in deploying cloud native technology and transitioning to 5G, we are gaining invaluable hands-on experience monitoring the first ever implementation of this cutting-edge technology. It further serves as a testament of our ability to innovate and build out new capabilities that we believe will increase our market share in the future.

https://seekingalpha.com/article/...-results-earnings-call-transcript  

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/...looking-2021-beyond-shahed-mazumder