Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
Users who referred the most people to Rakuten Mobile were invited to Rakuten Crimson House in Tokyo for lunch and an awards ceremony with Mickey. Check out this video for a recap of the event and clips from RNN's interview series with award recipients!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X91F7repM6E
Montabaur, 19. Dezember 2023 – Die 1&1 AG (ISIN DE 0005545503) prognostiziert für das Geschäftsjahr 2024 einen Anstieg des Service-Umsatzes um ca. 4 % (Prognose 2023: ca. 3,23 Mrd. EUR) sowie ein EBITDA-Wachstum von ca. 10 % (Prognose 2023: 655 Mio. EUR).
Auch 2024 wird die Gesellschaft weiter in den Ausbau ihres Mobilfunknetzes investieren – der Cash-Capex soll ca. 20 % höher ausfallen als im laufenden Jahr (Prognose 2023: ca. 320 Mio. EUR).
https://www.it-times.de/news/...ausblick-2024-157348/#google_vignette
Interviews with several sources revealed on November 13 that Rakuten Group, Inc. (headquarters: Tokyo) is planning to build a data center (DC) in the Ishikari Bay New Port area of Ishikari City. This data center will have an estimated power capacity of around 10–15 megawatts. By using renewable energy power produced in Hokkaido, it will be an eco-friendly facility used for their own business operations. Construction is apparently targeted to start in or after 2024.
https://e-kensin.net/news/161426.html
KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 9: To help boost Nepal’s tourism initiatives, Rakuten Viber has launched the second season of the Travel Campaign, bringing with it bigger and better rewards. The campaign is being run with the help of a travel influencer, Ghumante.
“Ghumante will be taking over the channel for six fun-filled weeks, posting a quiz featuring different destinations, where one user can stand a chance to win Rs. 15,000 each week for 6 weeks,” states a press release issued by Rakuten Viber. yesterday “And for one lucky winner, a grand prize of an all-expenses-paid trip to the enchanting Gokyo Lakes awaits them—a destination that epitomizes earthly paradise. After the campaign, select fans can also meet and greet Ghumante to connect with their favourite travel vlogger, share experiences, and gather expert travel tips.”
Throughout the campaign, Ghumante will serve as a guide, unveiling a new Nepalese destination each week. With exclusive content, personal anecdotes, and captivating visuals, users will be transported into the heart of the country’s splendor through the Explore Nepal Channel.
“We, at Viber, are thrilled about this campaign—it’s all about helping spark the travel bug of our users and making adventures more accessible to them. I could not think of a better ambassador than Ghumante. I’m sure he’ll do a great job at bringing those epic travel moments right to our subscribers,” the release quoted David Tse, Senior Director for APAC at Rakuten Viber, as saying.
https://english.aarthiknews.com/...-sesond-session-of-travel-campaign
Wednesday, Oct 18, 2023
"As we expand our business portfolio, we are committed to tailoring solutions to the unique needs of businesses of different scale and location," said Berina Tanovic, sales director at Rakuten Viber.
"As more Vietnamese brands turn to Viber for customer communication, we're providing solutions that enable them to connect with international and local audiences. With Viber, these businesses gain access to a secure, feature-rich communication platform that addresses their specific business needs."
On the same day, Rakuten Viber's senior management showcased the business offerings of the world-renowned app.
Company’s team discussed Viber's global and local presence, its growing audience, and Viber for Business solutions for effective and convenient communication between brands and consumers.
The company said that Viber is well-placed to help Vietnamese businesses make the most of these trends with its growing payable audience in Vietnam where the app saw an astounding 642 per cent spike in private calls, 24 per cent growth in messages exchanged in channels, and a 12 per cent increase in private messages during the first half of 2023.
Being used by more than 20,000 brands worldwide, Viber for Business offers advertising solutions, messaging solutions, forthcoming business calls and an OTP solution.
The Viber for Business ecosystem helps brands solve their business needs by building brand awareness and generating new leads to boost sales, increase ROI and effectively foster customer loyalty.
http://bizhub.vn/tech/...develop-solutions-for-businesses_349128.html
Berina Tanovic Sales Director at Rakuten Viber
November 3, 2023
Businesses must explore new ways of growth and customer reach. One such avenue is the integration of Rakuten Viber into your e-commerce strategy. With mobile e-commerce projected to account for a staggering 42.9% of all e-commerce sales by 2024, the significance of leveraging communication platforms like Rakuten Viber is more relevant than ever. A 2023 report from business texting software company Text Request highlights that an impressive 69% of consumers now prefer receiving texts related to making payments, while 46% express interest in texting businesses for sales inquiries. This blog post delves into how Rakuten Viber can be incorporated into your e-commerce strategy for unparalleled success in today's competitive digital marketplace.
https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/...-a-path-to-success/
By JEREMY STILLWAGNER AND KELLY AGEE
December 22, 2023
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Rakuten Mobile opened its first store on a U.S. military installation in Japan on Friday, giving service members living at this airlift hub in western Tokyo the choice of a second internet service provider.
“This was one of our huge initiatives for 2023, bringing in an alternative internet option for the Yokota community,” said Andrew Defelice, general manager of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service at Yokota, during the store’s opening ceremony.
Service members and their families had voiced their dissatisfaction with having only one internet service provider on base, the base commander said at the opening.
Rakuten Mobile opened in a space inside the Yokota Community Center. Previously, only Allied Telesis provided internet service to base residents.
https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/...yokota-12435924.html
Rakuten AI for Business ist eine neue Plattform, die Unternehmensaktivitäten wie Vertrieb, Marketing, Kundensupport, Betrieb, Strategieformulierung und Systementwicklung unterstützt. Das Unternehmen bietet Funktionen wie "Rakuten AI Analyst", der bei praktischen Analysen wie Datenanalyse und Diagrammerstellung hilft, "Rakuten AI Agent", der Unternehmensmitarbeitern hilft, Verbrauchern effizient fortschrittliche Dienstleistungen anzubieten, und "Rakuten AI Librarian", der Unternehmensmaterialien analysiert und die notwendigen Informationen liefert, um Fragen von Kunden schnell zu beantworten.
Der Zugriff ist von überall aus von einem Gerät wie einem Smartphone oder Tablet und einer Netzwerkumgebung aus möglich, die es Ihnen ermöglicht, vertrauliche Daten in einem Rechenzentrum sicher zu verwalten, das mit dem Kommunikationsnetzwerk und der Cloud-Technologie von Rakuten ausgestattet ist. Es wird das Know-how, die Daten und die Spitzentechnologie von OpenAI nutzen, um Unternehmen einen einzigartigen Mehrwert zu bieten.
https://www.itmedia.co.jp/mobile/articles/2311/14/news182.html
November 2023
Juniper Research interviewed Partha Seetala, President, Cloud BU at Rakuten Symphony, in November 2023. Rakuten was a Gold Winner for Network Virtualisation Innovation of the Year in our 2023 Future Digital Awards for Telco Innovation.
Partha Seetala is the President of the Cloud Business Unit at Rakuten Symphony and formerly the Founder and CEO at Robin.io. With more than 20 years' technology and product vision and expertise, he has taken multiple fully featured products from concept to market. He has conceived, designed, and built products in Scale-out Distributed Storage, File Systems, Networking, Distributed Systems, Big Data, and Information Analytics and the Containers/Kubernetes space.
Prior to founding Robin.io, which was acquired by Rakuten Symphony in 2022, he was a Distinguished Engineer at Symantec’s information and storage management business, known as Veritas. In that capacity, he conceived, architected, and led engineering teams to take multiple products from concept to market. He was also an adviser on multimillion-dollar product lines, including NetBackup, Cluster File System, Veritas Cluster Server, and Information Fabric. He holds a master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Rakuten Symphony Symcloud has proven 5G deployment at scale. What makes Symcloud unique, especially for network operators?
"Rakuten Symphony’s products cater to the cloud-native platforms telco workloads run on-- from the RAN (Radio Access Networks) to core to MEC, as well as in orchestration platforms that focus on multiple domains, including the infrastructure and service layers.
When you're running a telco network, you're running at scale. The workloads that you run are sensitive to the performance that they require. Operators expect a certain level of reliability, low latency and high throughput."
Tell us more about the industry-leading innovations that Symcloud brings for the cloud-native transformation of the telco stack?
"We make it simple for operators to deploy network functions at scale, and enable them to do it cost-efficiently. We help deploy workloads and achieve predictable performance as operators lower overall costsTCO (Total Cost of Ownership) provides services to make the post-deployment lifecycle management incredibly simple. Once a network function is deployed, it has a long lifecycle after that.
If you look at a network function, it is heavily reliant on the capabilities and underlying infrastructure on the network level, on the storage level, and on the compute side when launching a large network. An ideal solution must define requirements for the network function without going into the manual work of figuring out where it is deployed or how it gets the appropriate resources from the underlying hardware. So essentially, you treat the entire network of servers as a pool of resources that can be programmatically allocated to network functions.
If you can architect a solution like that, it becomes easier to onboard network functions, and that is what Rakuten does. On the cost side, there are several aspects, such as the licencing itself.
What we have done right through our experience deploying these complex workloads is figure out what to do architecturally in our product, so that the operational aspects can be programmatically enabled."
How does Symcloud differentiate itself from other similar solutions?
"There are several innovations we have patented across networking, storage, computing and GPUs (Graphical Processing Units), where we can isolate all physical resources and infrastructure in such a way that you can get predictable performance from network functions.
Again, without requiring manual configuration, the networks are all automatically discovered and programmatically enabled when it comes to deployment. That's how we deliver predictable high performance and low latency.
Choosing a cloud-native platform can be a difficult choice for operators as these services are complex and often harder to comprehend. It's difficult to know if service providers are offering all these services that provide differentiation. Rakuten adds all the capabilities required to ensure a platform is hardened and has a predictable release cycle."
As 5G becomes increasingly prevalent in the world, how does Symcloud help accelerate 5G & Edge roll-out?
"Network virtualisation dominated telco discussions for years, and would highlight the benefits of virtualisation. In the enterprise space, we are now in that phase of being cloud-native, and we understand the benefits of being cloud native.
However, given that it is such a complex domain which cuts across container orchestration, storage, networking, automation, orchestration, CPU, computer management, and infrastructure management, it becomes hard for users to essentially have those skills or acquire all those skills, so that people can manage their own networks.
Now to become successful in cloud-native service provision, I think the operators have to do two things: Firstly, they have to be moderately competent in asking the right questions to the vendors as to how they will not suffer the same pain that they suffered when we went through the virtualisation-based transformation. That essentially means that the mindset within the operator also has to change, saying that for us to become cloud native, this is the base level of understanding we need to have about cloud native.
Secondly, once operators build understanding, they'll be able to ask the right questions to the vendors. But those things can only happen when the operator has at least a passing understanding of what cloud-native technology can really do."
Symcloud has won some of the most coveted industry awards this year, including the Glomo award for Cloud. What does the future look like from here for Symcloud?
"Amazon's AWS division had a massive advantage because the Amazon eCommerce platform was there, learning at a playground to create all that innovation. When we have this large, massive network, instead of just hearing the requirements from other customers, we face those pain points ourselves.
So we have a clear view of where the biggest pains are in terms of how we can squeeze out a better TCO, how we can improve the utilisation of networks, and how we can ease operations.
We will bring in new types of hardware classes that provide innovation, whether it is from Intel or another chipset vendor. Expect a lot of innovation along those lines from us in the future."
https://www.juniperresearch.com/resources/blog/...akuten-gold-winner/
November 2023
Juniper Research interviewed Partha Seetala, President, Cloud BU at Rakuten Symphony, in November 2023. Rakuten was a Gold Winner for Network Virtualisation Innovation of the Year in our 2023 Future Digital Awards for Telco Innovation.
Partha Seetala is the President of the Cloud Business Unit at Rakuten Symphony and formerly the Founder and CEO at Robin.io. With more than 20 years' technology and product vision and expertise, he has taken multiple fully featured products from concept to market. He has conceived, designed, and built products in Scale-out Distributed Storage, File Systems, Networking, Distributed Systems, Big Data, and Information Analytics and the Containers/Kubernetes space.
Prior to founding Robin.io, which was acquired by Rakuten Symphony in 2022, he was a Distinguished Engineer at Symantec’s information and storage management business, known as Veritas. In that capacity, he conceived, architected, and led engineering teams to take multiple products from concept to market. He was also an adviser on multimillion-dollar product lines, including NetBackup, Cluster File System, Veritas Cluster Server, and Information Fabric. He holds a master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
Rakuten Symphony Symcloud has proven 5G deployment at scale. What makes Symcloud unique, especially for network operators?
"Rakuten Symphony’s products cater to the cloud-native platforms telco workloads run on-- from the RAN (Radio Access Networks) to core to MEC, as well as in orchestration platforms that focus on multiple domains, including the infrastructure and service layers.
When you're running a telco network, you're running at scale. The workloads that you run are sensitive to the performance that they require. Operators expect a certain level of reliability, low latency and high throughput."
Tell us more about the industry-leading innovations that Symcloud brings for the cloud-native transformation of the telco stack?
"We make it simple for operators to deploy network functions at scale, and enable them to do it cost-efficiently. We help deploy workloads and achieve predictable performance as operators lower overall costsTCO (Total Cost of Ownership) provides services to make the post-deployment lifecycle management incredibly simple. Once a network function is deployed, it has a long lifecycle after that.
If you look at a network function, it is heavily reliant on the capabilities and underlying infrastructure on the network level, on the storage level, and on the compute side when launching a large network. An ideal solution must define requirements for the network function without going into the manual work of figuring out where it is deployed or how it gets the appropriate resources from the underlying hardware. So essentially, you treat the entire network of servers as a pool of resources that can be programmatically allocated to network functions.
If you can architect a solution like that, it becomes easier to onboard network functions, and that is what Rakuten does. On the cost side, there are several aspects, such as the licencing itself.
What we have done right through our experience deploying these complex workloads is figure out what to do architecturally in our product, so that the operational aspects can be programmatically enabled."
How does Symcloud differentiate itself from other similar solutions?
"There are several innovations we have patented across networking, storage, computing and GPUs (Graphical Processing Units), where we can isolate all physical resources and infrastructure in such a way that you can get predictable performance from network functions.
Again, without requiring manual configuration, the networks are all automatically discovered and programmatically enabled when it comes to deployment. That's how we deliver predictable high performance and low latency.
Choosing a cloud-native platform can be a difficult choice for operators as these services are complex and often harder to comprehend. It's difficult to know if service providers are offering all these services that provide differentiation. Rakuten adds all the capabilities required to ensure a platform is hardened and has a predictable release cycle."
As 5G becomes increasingly prevalent in the world, how does Symcloud help accelerate 5G & Edge roll-out?
"Network virtualisation dominated telco discussions for years, and would highlight the benefits of virtualisation. In the enterprise space, we are now in that phase of being cloud-native, and we understand the benefits of being cloud native.
However, given that it is such a complex domain which cuts across container orchestration, storage, networking, automation, orchestration, CPU, computer management, and infrastructure management, it becomes hard for users to essentially have those skills or acquire all those skills, so that people can manage their own networks.
Now to become successful in cloud-native service provision, I think the operators have to do two things: Firstly, they have to be moderately competent in asking the right questions to the vendors as to how they will not suffer the same pain that they suffered when we went through the virtualisation-based transformation. That essentially means that the mindset within the operator also has to change, saying that for us to become cloud native, this is the base level of understanding we need to have about cloud native.
Secondly, once operators build understanding, they'll be able to ask the right questions to the vendors. But those things can only happen when the operator has at least a passing understanding of what cloud-native technology can really do."
Symcloud has won some of the most coveted industry awards this year, including the Glomo award for Cloud. What does the future look like from here for Symcloud?
"Amazon's AWS division had a massive advantage because the Amazon eCommerce platform was there, learning at a playground to create all that innovation. When we have this large, massive network, instead of just hearing the requirements from other customers, we face those pain points ourselves.
So we have a clear view of where the biggest pains are in terms of how we can squeeze out a better TCO, how we can improve the utilisation of networks, and how we can ease operations.
We will bring in new types of hardware classes that provide innovation, whether it is from Intel or another chipset vendor. Expect a lot of innovation along those lines from us in the future."
https://www.juniperresearch.com/resources/blog/...akuten-gold-winner/
Erfolge bei Rakuten Symphony laufen mehr auf der langfristigen Schiene.
gemäss dieser analyse erreicht rakuten mobile den break even in 2026. in den nächsten zwei jahren werden aber praktisch alle schulden von rakuten in der höhe von 5,4 mrd $ zur refinanzierung fällig.
bei mir gehen bei dieser konstellation gleich die ke-alarmlichter an, hier könnte eine grössere kapitalerhöhung notwendig werden bevor sich alles zum guten wenden wird. eine beträchtliche verwässerung droht. oder wie siehst du dieses risiko, libuda?
Sehr viel wichtiger für Fähigkeit, Kredite tilgen zu können, ist aber der Cash Flow. Und dieser wird insbesondere bei Rakuten Mobile und der Gesamtgesellschaft Rakuten schon sehr viel früher positiv sein als der Gewinn. Rakuten hatte zuletzt 2 Milliarden Dollar Abschreibungen pro Jahr und steuert in 2023 und den Folgejahren auf einen Wert von 2,5 Dollar bis 3 Milliarden Dollar zu. Selbst bei einem Gewinn von Null, sind dann zunächst einmal diese 2,5 Milliarden Dollar bis 3 Milliarden Dollar mehr in der Kasse, da sie jetzt als Aufwand den Gewinn mindern, aber bereits in den Vorjahren aus der Kasse abgeflossen sind. Wenn die Investitionen kleiner sind als diese 2,5 bis 3,5 Milliarden Dollar, und das ist ja nach den angekündigten Investitionskürzungen der Fall, können die Differenzen in 2024 und 2025 zur Rückzahlung von Schulden eingesetzt werden.
im übrigen hatte Rakuten aus der Kapitalerhöhung in der ersten Jahreshälfte von 2023 und Monetarisierungen am 30.9.2023 noch 2 Millarden Dollar auf der höhen Kante. Und auch danach fanden bei Rakuten Securities und Rakuten Bank weitere Monetarisierungem statt, die diesen Betrag auf ca. 2,9 Milliarden erhöht haben dürften. Zusammen mit der Selbstfinanzierung aus dem Cash Flow sind damit die nach dem 30.9. in 2023 fälligen und 2024 fälligen Kreditrückzahlungen schon abgedeckt.
2025 wird der aus der Selbstfinanzierung über den Cash Flow anfallende Betrag noch weiter ansteigen, der für die Kreditrückzahlung eingesetzt werden kann und die Monetarisierung der Beteiligung an Cabify dürfte weitere 500 Millionen Dollar oder mehr bringen. Und schließlich muss man dann auch die Frage stellen, warum alte Schulden nicht durch neue Schulden ersetzt werden können, wie das eigentlich bei Unternehmen üblich ist. Bei Rakuten haben interessierte Kreise aus vielerlei Motiven das Märchen in die Welt gesetzt, dass Unternehmen ihre Schulden am Ende der Laufzeit immer tilgen und nicht durch neue ersetzen. Nach dieser idiotischen Mär müssten dann Unternehmen nach einer gewissen Zeit mit 100% Eigenkapital arbeiten.
Dass dieser Schwachsinn der Wirklichkeit widerspricht, kann man leicht erkennen, denn es gibt schließlich einen optimalen Verschuldungsgrad, mit dessen man die Hilfe von Fremdkapital auf das eingesetzte Eigenkapital optimieren kann.
aber die bilanz muss auch stabil bleiben, die schuldenquote nicht zu hoch steigen und ein höheres zinsniveau beim revolvieren der schulden hat schon manches unternehmen stolpern lassen.
ich find rakuten einen extrem interessanten wert, nur schaue ich eben zuerst auch in die bilanz bevor ich eventuell einsteige. während alle welt von o-ran spricht ist aus meiner sicht die wahre revulotion die zweite neuentwicklung von rakuten, v-ran die eigentliche sensation. während bisher bei jedem funkmast ein kleiner server steht und bei jedem problem ein monteur zu sendemasten muss ist bei v-ran die steuerung über die cloud möglich, der sendemast server nur noch virtuell in der cloud vorhanden. (deshalb das v). das bringt die unterhaltskosten für den mobilebetreiber extrem runter, er hat praktisch nur noch festkosten und kaum variable kosten. das ist auch das, wovon der ceo spricht wenn er sagt, ist erstmal der break-even erreicht ist aller umsatz darüber gleich gewinn.
allerdings ist es nicht immer der erfinder einer neuen technik, welcher damit den kommerziellen durchbruch schafft. an o-ran und v-ran zweifle ich nicht, das kostensenkungspotential ist gewaltig für mobilebetreiber.
Aus der Gesamtbilanz von Rakuten kannst Du, was die Verschuldung anbetrifft, nichts - aber auch wirklich nichts Aussagekräftiges ablesen, da das ein Mischmasch einer herkömmlichen Bilanz und Bilanzen von Finanzunternehmen ist.
Banken arbeiten z.B. mit Eigenkapitalquoten unter 10% und haben sehr hohe Bilanzsummen, bei Versicherungen sind die Eigenkapitalquoten noch niedriger. Zahlen von herkömmlichen Unternehmen gehen daher bei Zusammenfassungen völlig unter.
Die einzige aussagekräftige Bilanz, was die Verschuldung anbetrifft ist daher die der Nichtfinanzunternehmen, die von Rakuten ebenfalls ausgewiesen ist.
Fakt ist, dass diese eigentlich einfachen Zusammenhänge viele Analysten überfordern, z.B. wenn sie über ein Studium der Kunstgeschichte in das Geschäft eingestiegen sind. Und Computerauswertungen versagen da erst recht - und auch die KI war da bisher zu dumm, um Abhilfe zu schaffen.
https://rakuten.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/RakutenShopStyle
https://rakuten.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/RakutenShopStyle
nicht meine welt, definitiv nichts was mich interessiert. hat sich eben doch gelohnt erstmal genauer hinzuschauen....
good luck, libuda.
December 2023
Abstract
We cheerfully welcome AT&T’s move as it is great news for:
The open RAN community and its growing ecosystem because we have been waiting for AT&T, the chief driver of open RAN since it started its flagship Domain 2.0 project in 2012 to look at network disaggregation, to pull the trigger.
Other open RAN vendors to be added to the AT&T network soon.
The U.S. as AT&T is putting the country back in the driver’s seat. This is where the open RAN journey started after all.
Our forecast that has been built with great expectations in the U.S. to materialize in the 2024 – 2028 timeframe.
https://lightcounting.com/research-note/...good-news-for-open-ran-347
22. DEZEMBER 2023
ResearchVise hat kürzlich einen einzigartigen Forschungsbericht zum globalen 5G Open Radio Access Networks (RAN) Solutions-Markt hinzugefügt. Dieser Bericht bietet eine eingehende Analyse des Markt es, einschließlich seiner Treiber, Chancen, Beschränkungen, Schlüsselsegmente, Wettbewerbslandschaft, Top-Investmenttaschen und Wertschöpfungskette. Es bietet eine quantitative und qualitative Analyse der aktuellen und aufstrebenden Markt trends, Einschätzungen und potenziellen Risiken.
Hauptakteure des globalen 5G Open Radio Access Networks (RAN) Solutions-Marktes:
Nokia
Parallel Wireless
Samsung
Ericsson
Juniper Networks
Tech Mahinda
Altiostar (Rakuten Symphony)
Vmware
JMA Wireless
Mavenir
VIAVI
https://glocalist.press/...er-ausblick-und-markt-segmentierung/16206/
According to its third quarter 2023 appendix presentation, Rakuten Mobile is aiming for monthly EBITDA breakeven by end-2024 and annual EBITDA breakeven in 2025 based on the following metrics:
Achieving 8 million to 10 million subscribers - as compared to 5.12 million as of Sept. 30 - driven by growth in its B2B business;
Raising average revenue per user to JPY 2,500 to JPY 3,000 - as compared to JPY 2,046 as of Sept. 30 - through higher data consumption for the B2C business and expanded offerings for B2B customers;
and lower network and SG&A costs to JPY 23 billion to JPY 25 billion per month.
https://www.reorg.com/rakuten-group-faces-jpy-105b-domestic-bond/