Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (ASTS) At close: October 11 at 4:00 PM EDT:  24.18+1.11(+4.81%)
 

Acorns puts the responsible tools of wealth making into everyone's hands: CEO Noah Kerner

https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6352973228112
 

Is Acorns profitable?
While specific profitability information isn't provided, Acorns has shown strong revenue growth. The company's revenue increased from $44 million in 2019 to $71 million in 2020, a 61% growth. Acorns was projected to generate $309 million in revenue by 2023. However, it's important to note that rapid growth and high revenue don't necessarily equate to profitability, especially for fintech startups focusing on user acquisition and product development.

How much is Acorns worth?
As of its last funding round in March 2022, Acorns had a post-money valuation of $1.8 billion. It's important to note that this valuation is for a private company and may differ from a potential public market cap. Valuations can fluctuate based on market conditions, company performance, and investor sentiment. Acorns had previously planned a $2.2 billion SPAC merger but called it off due to market conditions, indicating the volatility of private company valuations.

https://www.linqto.com/how-to-invest/how-to-invest-in-acorns-2024/

 

Partha Seetala

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os5by3jKUvc
 

October 11, 2024

TelecomTV’s Guy Daniels previews the programmes for this year’s AI-Native Telco Summit – back for a second year. Find out what topics are being covered and who we have as guest speakers. Get an early look at the three panel discussions, with selected highlights. Don’t forget to take part in our poll and to send in your questions for the live Q&A shows – we have one per day, during which our panellists will return to answer as many of your questions as they can. If you haven’t yet done so, please register now – it’s free to view for all members of our community.

Featuring:
Aaron Boasman-Patel, Vice President Innovation, TM Forum
Alex Jinsung Choi, Principal Fellow, Research Institute of Advanced Technology, SoftBank Corp., Chair of the AI-RAN Alliance
Antonio Guzmán, Director of Discovery and Innovation, Telefónica Digital Innovation
Beth Cohen, SDN Network Product Strategy, Verizon Business Group
Danielle Rios, Acting CEO, Totogi
Manish Singh, CTO, Telecom Systems Business, Dell Technologies
Martin Halstead, Senior Distinguished Technologist, Aruba Telco Solutions, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Michael Clegg, Vice President and General Manager for 5G and Edge, Supermicro
Patrick Kelly, Founder and Principal Analyst, Appledore Research
Paul Miller, Chief Technology Officer, Wind River
Rahul Atri, President, OSS Business Unit, Rakuten Symphony
Scott Cadzow, Chair of ETSI TC Securing Artificial Intelligence (SAI)
Shujaur Mufti, Senior Manager, Global Partners Solution Architecture Telecom, Media, & Entertainment, Red Hat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_HyR-S_EQY

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_HyR-S_EQY  

The growth of cloud native and its impact on telcos

September 23, 2024  

Has cloud native now entered the mainstream within telcos? Are we now seeing significant uptake in cloud-native infra and cloud-native function (CNF) workloads, and have internal software teams reorganised around cloud-native principles? This panel explores the growth of cloud-native technologies and addresses key challenges, such as expertise gaps, operational complexities and vendor software maturity, while highlighting success stories in cloud-native telco deployments. We also look to the future to see how developments within the cloud-native, open-source community may impact telcos in the coming years.

Featuring:
Amajit Gupta, Group CEO & MD, Lightstorm
Balaji Subramaniam, Director of Product Line Management, Blue Planet, a division of Ciena
Juan Carlos Garcia, Senior Technology and Innovation Advisor, Independent
Mark Longwell, Director, Telco and Edge Alliances, Hybrid Platforms Business Unit, Red Hat
Partha Seetala, President, Cloud Business Unit, Rakuten Symphony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5nLru49GFM
 

Rakuten and Science Arts Form Capital and Business Alliance to Drive Business Synergies
- Rakuten Mobile and Science Arts also partner to bring Buddycom to companies across the Rakuten Ecosystem through the “Rakuten Mobile Buddycom Set” package.

Tokyo, October 15, 2024 – Rakuten Group, Inc. and Science Arts, Inc. today announced that they have signed a capital and business alliance agreement to deepen their collaborations across a range of initiatives, and strengthen technological and business synergies.

In addition, Rakuten Mobile, Inc. and Science Arts have entered into a business alliance agreement to drive sales for a package deal that combines Rakuten Mobile’s Rakuten Saikyo Plan Business for enterprise customers with Science Arts' communication platform "Buddycom."

Rakuten, Rakuten Mobile and Science Arts also signed a basic agreement to jointly develop solutions that enhance business operation efficiencies for Rakuten’s partner companies by integrating Rakuten's AI technology and solution suite with Buddycom.

Mickey Mikitani, Chairman and CEO, Rakuten Group, commented, "With this new alliance, we look forward to deepening our collaboration with Science Arts across the Rakuten Ecosystem, spanning mobile, digital transformation and beyond. By combining the power of Rakuten's AI technology and solution suite with Buddycom, we aim to significantly improve operational and marketing efficiency for our partner companies, driving growth and maximizing corporate value."

Hidekazu Hiraoka, President and CEO, Science Arts, commented, "We are delighted to strengthen our collaborative relationship with Rakuten and Rakuten Mobile to create new value together. Integrating Rakuten's AI technology with Buddycom will enhance service features and convenience, enabling us to deliver the future of digital transformation to frontline workers and promote brighter and happier workplaces."

About the Business Alliance and Basic Agreement

Beginning in January 2024, Rakuten Mobile began offering Buddycom as a solution for corporate clients, and from April 2024, the company introduced the Rakuten Mobile Buddycom Set for accommodation facilities registered with Rakuten Travel, promoting digital transformation and operational efficiencies for frontline workers in the service industry and beyond. In the future, based on their business alliance, Rakuten Mobile and Science Arts will expand sales for the Rakuten Mobile Buddycom Set to Rakuten Ichiba and partner companies from across the Rakuten Ecosystem, further driving digital transformation and operational efficiencies by providing customized packages designed to meet the needs of different markets.

In addition, under the basic agreement, Rakuten will leverage its AI technologies and suite of solutions in collaboration with Science Arts to further enhance Buddycom, making it even more user-friendly and intuitive as a voice solution that addresses the needs of frontline workers. This joint development aims to improve operational efficiency for Rakuten’s partner companies.

The three companies will continue to explore ways to provide additional value by utilizing data assets and AI to enhance corporate customers’ operational efficiency.

About the Capital Alliance
Rakuten's plans for investment in Science Arts are as follows.
Investment method: Subscription of new shares via third-party allotment
Number of shares subscribed: 819,000 shares
Investment amount: 434,070,000 yen
Investment ratio (voting rights basis): 10.17%
Payment date: October 31, 2024 (planned)

https://corp.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/english/news/...20241015_01_lang_en
 

Tuesday, 30 July 2024

While the rollout of O-RAN has experienced a multitude of delays, we expect large-scale rollouts of O-RAN to take shape in 2025 and 2026, culminating in the deployment of over two million O-RAN-compliant base stations in 2029. This acceleration of O-RAN rollouts will be driven by key operators such as AT&T and Vodafone, all of whom have signed significant deals for O-RAN infrastructure development or begun significant O-RAN RFQs.

As the above infographic illustrates, ten countries have begun deployment or seen commercial launches of O-RAN services, including Canada, Peru, India, Japan, Romania, the UK, and the US. An additional five are also currently field testing O-RAN, including Brazil, Spain, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.

https://www.juniperresearch.com/resources/...ead-of-open-ran-in-2024/
 

September 5, 2024

In der dynamischen Welt der Connected TV (CTV)-Werbung ist das Verständnis der Marktdynamik und -nuancen entscheidend. Unser neuester Bericht, „The New Frontier of Advertising: Navigating the European Connected TV Market“, der gemeinsam mit Google Ad Manager erstellt wurde, taucht tief in die europäische CTV-Werbelandschaft ein.

https://blog.rakutenadvertising.com/de-de/...europaeischen-ctv-markt/
 

Mobile Experience Awards

October 2024, Japan Report

Rakuten Mobile wins both 5G speed awards, but au retains Download Speed Experience

Once again, Rakuten Mobile users enjoy the fastest 5G speeds in Japan. The operator wins the 5G Download Speed award outright with a score of 176.5Mbps, beating au by 21Mbps. Rakuten Mobile also defends the 5G Upload Speed award outright with a score of 27Mbps. While Rakuten Mobile remains the sole winner of Upload Speed Experience, au holds Download Speed Experience in a firm grip, with average download speeds clocking in at 54.7Mbps.

https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2024/10/japan/...etwork-experience
 

Inside Track Episode 3: Partha Seetala, President, Cloud Business Unit

October 15, 2024

In Episode 3 of Inside Track, Partha Seetala, President of Rakuten Symphony’s Cloud Business Unit explains why AI education is essential in order to ensure long-term job security. When combined with domain expertise, it can create “magic”, he said. Seetala also discussed ways that the Cloud BU will incorporate AI into its products in the near future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu0B6Ibkebo

 

of Rakuten Mobile will be 8 million subscriber at the end of November 2024.  

The Japanese E-Commerce Payment market is expected to reach US$ 253.04 Billion in 2023 to US$ 759.54 Billion by 2032, with a CAGR of 12.99 % from 2024 to 2032. Japan's e-commerce platforms are rapidly expanding, government activities supporting digital payments are encouraging, and consumers' growing demand for cashless transactions are the main drivers of this robust growth.
The need for e-commerce payment solutions has grown dramatically in Japan due to the country's e-commerce industry's explosive rise. There is an increasing need for safe, practical, and effective payment options as more people shop online. Digital payment methods such as online banking and mobile wallets provide a smooth and convenient transaction experience that suits the tastes of tech-savvy customers.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...merce-payment-market-090300025.html


 

 

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (ASTS)
28.49+0.27(+0.96%)
At close: October 17 at 4:00 PM EDT
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ASTS/

Rakuten owning 31,020,155 shares of AST SpaceMobile
31,020,155 shares has a value of $884 million
 

Chief AI & Data Officer Ting Cai unveils Rakuten AI strategy at Rakuten Optimism 2024

11 hours ago

Rakuten Chief AI & Data officer Ting Cai outlined the company’s latest developments in AI and shared his vision for the future of the technology in front of a packed business conference audience at Rakuten Optimism 2024.

AI and Omotenashi: Designing AI that proactively drives value

Cai opened the presentation by referencing a 2016 blog post where Rakuten Group Founder and CEO Mickey Mikitani stated, “I think we can all benefit from looking at how to use AI to deliver on the promise of omotenashi – the concept of achieving the height of possibilities in customer satisfaction, including the very anticipation of their wants and needs.”

This, Cai explained, is the core of Rakuten’s approach to AI. “We want to leverage AI to deliver the ultimate hospitality to our customers. Not only to meet their needs, but to anticipate what they want.”
Cai pointed to the recently released Stanford AI Index as a validation point for the opportunities in generative AI. The report estimates that global investment in generative AI grew to more than $25 billion in 2023, eight times the amount in 2022. Industry momentum is strong and growing stronger, and Rakuten is seizing the opportunities by leveraging Rakuten’s unique data, ubiquitous channels and operational excellence to utilize AI to augment human creativity.

Relentlessly pursuing innovation. Relentlessly pursuing safety.

He added that while Silicon Valley founders are known for encouraging a “move fast and break things” mentality, Rakuten takes a different approach – one that equally values a rapid pace of innovation and development, and an unwavering commitment to safety and trust.

This approach is deeply rooted in Rakuten’s AI Code of Ethics, a playbook that that sets guidelines on how the company can design, develop, test and deploy AI in ways that permit rapid innovation and experimentation, without ever compromising user trust or safety.

Cai then outlined the Rakuten AI Foundation and explained how by focusing on the fundamentals, like Rakuten’s unique data assets, powerful deep learning capabilities, and generative AI innovations, the company is well-positioned to scale AI to every part of the business. “We use our deep learning foundation to truly understand customer intent and personalize our services to their needs,” said Cai.
Cai dove deep into the underlying technology that’s powering Rakuten’s AI charge, starting with the concept of “embedding.” Embedding captures the meaning of words in mathematical terms, clustering similar entities together in the vector space, to help understand what a user means, not just what they say.

During the presentation, he cited an example where a customer comes to the Rakuten Ichiba online marketplace searching for an umbrella that provides “sun protection.” Embedding within the system will understand that this term is similar in meaning to “UV protection.” This association enhances the customer’s search, better matches them with relevant products and is now used with hundreds of millions of products across the Rakuten Ecosystem.

New similarities can be inferred using deep learning. To illustrate this point, Cai showed an example of how prescription glasses are categorized as “accessories” in the store but are also closely related to contact lenses, which are grouped in the “pharmaceuticals” category.

“Such discoveries of new relationships enable us to recommend related products to our users,” added Cai.

Deep learning is used to build applications for recommendations, search and ads in the Rakuten Ecosystem. Semantic search, which leverages deep learning, was launched this year with Rakuten Ichiba and last year with Rakuten Fashion, and the result thus far has been remarkable. Zero hit rate of customers (customers who search for products but cannot find any results), was reduced by almost 98 percent.

Rakuten is now extending this semantic understanding of words to visual search. Like word search, visual search uses transformer technology to break down images into patches and simulate them with words to predict the whole image. The Rakuten Ichiba mobile app uses this to allow customers to find more relevant search results from images they upload.

Improving customer experience with Rakuten AI for Rakuten Rewards

Following Ting on stage was Daniel Kellogg, Director of Analytics at Rakuten Rewards, who demonstrated Rakuten Rewards’ AI-powered solutions to address its most common customer service issue: discrepancies in Cash Back payments. Take for example a situation where a customer who bought a pair of sunglasses received a smaller Cash Back reward than they expected. Before AI, providing personalized answers instantly was costly and hard to deliver at scale. It required a team of highly-trained support staff who had to research the transaction, refer to a rule-based playbook, and then apply human judgement to the situation.

Rakuten Rewards is in the process of introducing an AI-powered workflow to answer inquiries of this nature instantly with messages tailored to the customer’s needs. Kellogg walked through a scenario where a customer did not receive the Cash Back they expected on a transaction. He started by entering the merchant name, date of purchase, expected Cash Back amount and order confirmation evidence in Rakuten Rewards customer service system to generate a claim ID.

From there, Rakuten Rewards’ support system generates an appropriate response based on factors like the customer’s purchase history, location and tone of their correspondence. After the order’s legitimacy has been analyzed and confirmed, “The AI system is intelligent enough to generate a member response and add the Cash Back amount to their Rakuten account,” shares Kellogg.
Kellogg expects this solution to resolve up to 90 percent of Rakuten Rewards’ customer inquiries, enabling its customer service personnel to dedicate their time to less-common issues that require direct human attention to solve.

“It delivers an experience that secures and deepens our customers’ trust and loyalty, while also reducing our operational costs by 90 percent,” he added.

Introducing Rakuten AI Universal Concierge


Cai and Zoey Zhao, a Rakuten AI product manager, unveiled Rakuten AI Universal Concierge – an experimental feature that enhances how customers experience the Rakuten Ecosystem.

Zhao explained that the Rakuten AI concierge provides a simple, unified way to look for products and services. She first demonstrated multimodal search with the Universal Concierge, using the example of a birthday gift search for a pet dog on Rakuten Ichiba. She uploaded a picture of the dog and provided a prompt asking if it had any gift recommendations. The application recognized that the dog was a poodle and provided ideas. Zhao then used her voice to ask the application for additional ideas on suitable raincoats for a dog. The speech from her mobile phone was recognized and resulted in further matching of dog raincoat products, with the application automatically listing suitable products.
This feature will be rolling out to select Rakuten services soon.

“By delivering personalized experiences to our customers, we increase our customer trust, earn their loyalty and deliver more business value to our merchants,” said Cai as he returned to the stage for closing remarks.

While Rakuten AI promises to continue bringing value to customers, Cai was clear that Rakuten AI is more than just that. “I believe Rakuten AI is a culture,” pointing to the culture of AI empowerment that defines Rakuten’s vision. “In the future we envision that AI will be a part of everyone’s lives… empowering people to accomplish more.”

https://rakuten.today/blog/...-strategy-at-rakuten-optimism-2024.html
 

What is Rakuten Viber? Exploring its Features and Benefits

October 13, 2024 by Kaizirk Janderheart

https://www.topbubbleindex.com/blog/...features/?utm_content=cmp-true  

Viber opens new Manila office

Benise Balaoing, ABS-CBN News
Published Oct 18, 2024 05:32 PM PHT

MANILA -- Viber has opened a new office in the Philippines.
In a statement, the messaging app said its new office in Bonifacio Global City will be for the teams handling marketing and business development, B2B for advertising sales and business messages, fintech, and customer support.

Rakuten Viber Senior Director for Asia Pacific David Tse said the opening of the Manila office is part of its goal to expand its presence in the region.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/2024/10/18/...ew-manila-office-1512
 

Rakuten Mobile surpassed 7 million subscribers as of June 16. It said 500,000 subscribers were added in just over two months since the 6.5 million milestone, marking the largest ever three-month net increase in subscribers since the launch of the Rakuten UN-LIMIT VII plan.

https://japantoday.com/category/business/...ses-7-million-subscribers
 

Rakuten Viber targets business customers in Vietnam

The Saigon Times
August 21, 2024

Viber is currently working with Vietnamese government agencies and over 100 large businesses in sectors such as telecommunications, fintech, and aviation.

Viber for Business, the company’s enterprise solution, offers tools designed to help businesses build strong customer relationships. These tools include Viber Advertising, Viber Rich Business Messaging, and Viber Business Calls.

The company has reported robust user engagement in Vietnam, with over 474 million messages sent, 16 million calls made, and 36 million images shared monthly.

To support its expansion in Vietnam, Viber is actively recruiting local talent and plans to establish a physical office in the country soon.

https://english.thesaigontimes.vn/...s-business-customers-in-vietnam/
 

https://www.trustradius.com/products/...iews?qs=product-usage#reviews
 

Rakuten Viber führt eine Funktion zum spurlosen Löschen von Nachrichten ein

Eine der weltweit führenden Plattformen für private und sichere Kommunikation Rakuten Viber kündigt die Einführung einer neuen nützlichen Funktion an – das spurlose Löschen von Nachrichten aus Chats. Mit dieser Funktion können Benutzer mit einem Viber Plus-Abonnement ihre Nachrichten diskret zurückziehen, unabhängig davon, ob sie gelesen wurden oder nicht.

Die derzeit beliebteste Abonnementfunktion ist der „Unsichtbarkeitsmodus“, der bereits von mehr als 72 % der Viber Plus-Benutzer weltweit genutzt wird. In diesem Modus können Sie online sein und Vorschaunachrichten lesen, ohne Ihren Online-Status preiszugeben. Dies hilft Benutzern, ihre Privatsphäre zu wahren. „Nachrichten spurlos löschen“ verbessert die Privatsphäre weiter, indem es Ihnen ermöglicht, das Senden einer Nachricht in einem Chat rückgängig zu machen.

Der Pressedienst des Unternehmens fügte hinzu, dass die Zahl der Viber Plus-Abonnenten seit Januar 2024 um 170 % gestiegen sei. Exklusive Abonnementfunktionen und -inhalte stehen Millionen von Rakuten Viber-Benutzern in 100 Ländern zur Verfügung.

https://de.root-nation.com/ua/news-ua/it-news-ua/...ing-messages/?amp
 

Beyond Viki: Exploring Rakuten’s Influence in the Entertainment World

October 14, 2024 by Kaizirk Janderheart

https://www.topbubbleindex.com/blog/rakuten-entertainment-influence/
 

Open-RAN Investment by Operators to Surge in Next Five Years Reaching $39 Billion, as Operators Focus on Maximising Network Efficiency

Hampshire, UK – 29th July 2024: A new study by Juniper Research, the foremost experts in telecommunications markets, has found that annual operator investment into O-RAN (Open Radio Access Networks) will reach $11 billion in 2029; rising from $2 billion in 2024.

This culmination of nearly $40 billion of global investment into AI network automation by 2029 will be driven by the need to cater for increasing cellular connections and data.

https://www.juniperresearch.com/press/...to-surge-in-next-five-years/