Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
August 18, 2022
BEAUTY AWARD is held annually to recognize outstanding beauty salons and hair stylists, with winners chosen not by specialists in the field, but by Rakuten Beauty users. The awards presentation was conducted "caravan style," as Rakuten Beauty employees visited each individual salon to thank the staff directly and award them in person.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooBOCFa7Hsc
Moderation
Zeitpunkt: 19.08.22 11:30
Aktion: Löschung des Beitrages
Kommentar: Moderation auf Wunsch des Verfassers
Zeitpunkt: 19.08.22 11:30
Aktion: Löschung des Beitrages
Kommentar: Moderation auf Wunsch des Verfassers
Von Rakuten Advertising | 9 August 2022 | NEWS
Rakuten Advertising wurde kürzlich mit der Silbermedaille für Nachhaltigkeit von EcoVadis ausgezeichnet, womit Rakuten Advertising nun zu den Top 25% der nachhaltigsten Unternehmen zählt.
EcoVadis ist der weltweit zuverlässigste Anbieter von Nachhaltigkeitsratings und intelligenten, kollaborativen Tools zur Leistungssteigerung für globale Lieferketten. EcoVadis‘ einfach zu handhabende und umsetzbare Nachhaltigkeits-Scorecards, die von einer leistungsstarken Technologieplattform und einem globalen Team von CSR-Experten unterstützt werden, bieten detaillierte Einblicke in ökologische, soziale und ethische Risiken in 200 Einkaufskategorien und 160 Ländern.
https://blog.rakutenadvertising.com/de-de/news/...keit-ausgezeichnet/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/...chains-and-counter-china/
And so, in building Rakuten mobile network, we have focused on four primary areas to provide the level of reliability and resiliency that is unparalleled in the world. Number 1 is redundancy. Our network runs on common hardware appliance, and it gives Rakuten mobile unbelievable ability to replicate hardware architecture across all network function.
Number 2 is observability, we are one of the few mobile operators in the world that have the ability to provide new real time latency to observe 1,000s and 100s of 1000s of network functions in our network.
Number 3, which is the major technology revolution that we have done is virtualization. Through software virtualization, we’re able to manage complex network architecture, manage resiliency and deliver better reliability than the existing mobile networks across the world.
And Number 4, our relentless focus on automation, machine driven AI/ML models to do configuration and changes in the network avoid any manual interruption that could happen due to human error. We think this level of reliability does not exist in any of the networks worldwide. That’s what makes us network unique. And we think this is the right DNA and architecture for the quality of Rakuten mobile in Japan.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/...-results-earnings-call-transcript
What’s driving the growth?
Appetite for digital banking has accelerated in recent years. Virtual banks have surged ahead, increasing digital engagement with clients and simplifying the user experience, a phenomena boosted during the pandemic. Lockdowns amplified the need for easy online access to products, services and information. As we look ahead, financial services will become increasingly digital, likely benefitting digital natives.
Many newcomers have achieved profitability
More than half of the 20 largest digital banks were profitable in the last financial year. Most of the profitable banks are backed by large tech conglomerates or they have diversified revenue streams and a mature business model. The remainder rely on regular capital injections from venture capitalists and equity investors. Their net losses are usually a result of heavy customer acquisition costs in their pursuit of rapid growth, or they suffer from high operating costs due to lack of scale.
Independent challengers typically need more time to break even than those affiliated with tech conglomerate challengers who benefit from access to the wider group’s customer base, brand recognition, client data, technology and financial resources.
https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/about/insights/...king-systems.html, held $58.7 billion
What’s driving the growth?
Appetite for digital banking has accelerated in recent years. Virtual banks have surged ahead, increasing digital engagement with clients and simplifying the user experience, a phenomena boosted during the pandemic. Lockdowns amplified the need for easy online access to products, services and information. As we look ahead, financial services will become increasingly digital, likely benefitting digital natives.
Many newcomers have achieved profitability
More than half of the 20 largest digital banks were profitable in the last financial year. Most of the profitable banks are backed by large tech conglomerates or they have diversified revenue streams and a mature business model. The remainder rely on regular capital injections from venture capitalists and equity investors. Their net losses are usually a result of heavy customer acquisition costs in their pursuit of rapid growth, or they suffer from high operating costs due to lack of scale.
Independent challengers typically need more time to break even than those affiliated with tech conglomerate challengers who benefit from access to the wider group’s customer base, brand recognition, client data, technology and financial resources.
https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/about/insights/...nking-systems.html
August 19, 2022
The most significant players coated in Global Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) Market report:
Rakuten
Verizon
Fujitsu
Altiostar
AT&T
Nokia
ZTE Corporation
Samsung
Mavenir
CMCC
Huawei
https://marketresearchfunda.com/...-altiostar-rakuten-fujitsu-att-etc
Kazunori Ito Aug 17, 2022
Based on the weaker-than-expected improvement of the mobile business in the June quarter, we cut our 2027 revenue and operating income projection for Rakuten to JPY 2.78 trillion and JPY 269 billion, from JPY 2.95 trillion and JPY 326 billion, respectively, and lowered Rakuten’s fair value estimate to JPY 1,100 from JPY 1,300 accordingly. We think accelerating subscription growth and reducing roaming costs through expanding network coverage will continue to be the key for Rakuten mobile to become profitable. Although we lowered our fair value estimate, we retain our view that the stock is undervalued, as we believe that Rakuten is making solid progress in monetizing its user base and that mobile users will make a larger contribution to Rakuten’s ecosystem in the longer run.
Although the mobile segment recorded a quarter-on-quarter JPY 11 billion improvement in operating loss in the second quarter as a result of more paid users and lower roaming costs, the improvement was slower than we had anticipated. Contrary to our expectations, Rakuten recorded a net decrease of 140,000 users for the first time since its launch. The company explained that approximately 80% of the cancellations were due to the announcement of the termination of the free low-data-usage band, which should be a one-off event, but the remaing cancellations were a result of dissatisfaction with Rakuten’s coverage and quality. Rakuten mobile achieved 97.6% population coverage by the end of June and announced its plan to reach 99% by the end of 2023, with a goal of 12 million subscriptions (9.4% of Japan’s population) by an unknown time. Nonetheless, we revise our mobile subscription projection downward for the end of 2022 and 2026 to 5.1 million and 10.5 million from 5.8 million and 11 million, respectively, as we are still skeptical of how the improvement in population coverage and communication quality translates into an increase in subscribers.
https://www.morningstar.com/stocks/xtks/4755/quote
AST SpaceMobile price target $30
08/17/22
AST SpaceMobile price target lowered to $30 from $31 at Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank analyst Bryan Kraft lowered the firm's price target on AST SpaceMobile to $30 from $31 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares post the Q2 results. The analyst remains bullish on AST's long-term business opportunity and says the company continues to make progress on its plan.
Read more at:
https://thefly.com/n.php?id=3568542
Aug 17, 2022 7:48pm PT
Rakuten Viki is one such streamer that has seen incredible growth during the past few years, with viewers logging on everywhere from Latin America to the Mediterranean to Australia. Sam Wu, CEO of Viki, which is the streaming arm of Japanese retail giant Rakuten, spoke with Variety‘s “Strictly Business” podcast about the company’s growth and why Korean dramas, in particular, are resonating with viewers
Wu explains the free and paid streaming business models that Viki uses to maintain a steady funnel of users. He also discusses the investment in tech tools to help build fan communities with Watch Party features, simultaneous commentary and other features. He also details the incredible level of commitment from ardent fans that allows Viki to overcome the language hurdles within the Asian diaspora, as Viki users voluntarily create subtitles for hundreds of titles in multiple languages.
Moreover, Wu credits the passionate Viki user base as the single-biggest factor in driving buzz and sampling of the various Viki channels and services.
“We truly leverage (our) community to be the advocates that help share the content,” Wu says. “Outside of Viki, we’ve built a strong social media presence with followers across social media. People will tend to highly engage and tag their friends and share and also post and repost. So we leverage that quite heavily as a way for us to get the word out there. It’s authentic and something that really scales quite well, because people discover content now through word-of-mouth and their friends.”
https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/...-rakuten-viki-k-drama-1235343821/
First bigger revenues for Rakuten Symphony will flow in the second half of the year 2022. For example German 1&1 will pay in the average $200 million in every of 10 years and will start paying after my estimates in the second half of 2022. Dish and AT&T are other important clients of Rakuten Symphony, who will start paying in the not-too-distant future.
1&1 achieves speeds of more than 1Gbps in Open RAN network testing
The results exceeded the operator's initial expectations
August 17, 2022
By Paul Lipscombe
German telecoms operator 1&1 claims to have recorded speeds of more than 1Gbps in its live 5G network testing.
The tests were carried out in July, as confirmed in a company post on LinkedIn, and carried out using 1&1's fully virtualized Open RAN network.
In the post, the operator said: "In July, we launched the first friendly user test under real conditions and in real customer behavior! The results made our predictions and were sometimes even higher!"
"We have achieved speeds of over 1 gigabit per second as well as stable data transfers with about 8 terabytes per customer within 24 hours! We are particularly pleased with the extremely fast response time. Under optimal conditions, we achieved latency times of only 3ms!"
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/...en-ran-network-testing/
In the “Rakuten Mobile Area Report” released on August 8, Rakuten Mobile announced measures to strengthen radio waves to provide stable communication services even during summer events where the network tends to be congested.
Rakuten Mobile is implementing measures to strengthen radio waves, such as temporarily installing mobile base stations, so that it can provide stable communication services even at events with many people.
https://iphonewired.com/news/451826/
Question: You were aiming for 12 million applications, but do you have any details such as the target time?
Mr. Mikitani
I think that it will progress with the expansion of the network.
We are also conducting marketing by region, so we would like to announce our acquisition target at the appropriate time.
Compared to the initial speed of Rakuten Card, which is currently approaching 30 million, we believe that it is still overwhelmingly fast.
Question: How much profit improvement can be expected by abolishing 0 yen?
Mr. Mikitani
Profitability has improved by approximately 11 billion yen year-on-year. From November, there will be no cashback, and the price will really start at 980 yen. There may be a certain amount of withdrawal, but I think there will be a considerable improvement in earnings here.
Also, about 7% of data usage is roaming, but 78% was originally roaming, but it has decreased to that extent. Also, regarding the 5GB limit during roaming, we would like to reduce withdrawal by reducing the roaming area and moving towards eliminating it.
Also, an AST satellite will be launched in September. As a result, Rakuten Mobile will be able to achieve 100% geographical coverage, from the sky to space to the entire country, so this will be a major point of differentiation.
https://oorainbowoo.tokyo/...cellations-are-0-yen-users-keitai-watch/
Thursday, 11th August, 2022
https://www.samenacouncil.org/samena_daily_news?news=91279
August 20, 2022 12:49 PM
New Rakuten Viber Chief Executive Officer Ofir Eyal is bringing the popular communications app to the fintech category as it’s determined to offer users more than its core messaging and calling features, a critical move to fulfil its vision of becoming a super app.
According to a press release, Viber is set to roll out the in-app payments service, allowing users to create a digital wallet within the platform.
Payment wallets can be linked to bank accounts as well as Visa and Mastercard to transfer money to other individuals, buy products, and pay bills.
APAC is currently one of Viber's highest-growth regions. It grows over 20% annually and continues to innovate partnerships and projects unique to the region. Viber continues to invest in the Asia Pacific region and is set to rapidly grow its user base by producing more country-specific partnerships, localizing strategies and offerings, and providing more benefits to Viber users.
Apart from the usual practice of Viber in empowering businesses through its core features and developing new ones such as channels, it also aims to entertain its users by supporting their current interests and passion.
Viber recently launched mGames chatbot with over 70 hyper casual games, a capability to create a private lobby to compete with friends and rank the highest against anyone who plays via the leaderboard.
It was recently launched in Bangladesh and other countries in the region. In addition to that, cricket enthusiasts of Bangladesh could get cricket updates from Cricket Vibes Channel with a following of over 800K members.
Bangladesh is a strong potential market with more and more people becoming dependent on technology for everyday activities as the government plans to build a Digital Bangladesh.
https://www.dhakatribune.com/business/2022/06/09/...-chatbot-on-viber
BY RADHA SAPKOTA ON AUGUST 21, 2022
Popular social media messaging app Rakuten Viber is entering the fintech category with Viber Pay, following the appointment of new CEO Ofir Eyal. Under the leadership of Eyal, Viber is heading towards becoming a super app from now on.
Needless to say, it had already started its services to integrate chatbot systems for digital payment systems and other telecommunications. Nepal too has a large number of Viber users. It has been a few years since Nepali digital wallets like eSewa and Khalti have been providing services through Viber.
Viber is determined to offer users more than its core messaging and calling features, a critical move to fulfill its vision of becoming a super app.
Asia Pacific (APAC) is one of Viber’s highest growth regions. It expands by over 20% yearly and keeps coming up with new collaborations and projects that are specific to the area.
Viber is planning to rapidly expand its user base in the Asia Pacific area by forming more relationships with nations specifically, localizing its business models, and offering additional advantages to its consumers.
With a 38% increase in group chats, a 26% increase in messages delivered to the group, and a 39% increase in community viewers, Viber continues to be one of the most renowned and trusted communication platforms in Nepal.
Individual users of the app, as well as major and small enterprises, and educational institutions, have shown loyalty and faith in it.
https://techsathi.com/viber-pay
Contributed by Symphony directly is Altiostar, the developer of radio access network (RAN) software that Rakuten took full ownership of last year for an undisclosed fee. The cloud platform that hosts Altiostar, as well as other software elements, will come from Robin.io, another company Rakuten has acquired.
"The cloud environment for the CU [central unit], DU [distributed unit], IMS [Internet Protocol multimedia subsystem] core, packet core – anything and everything – is running on Robin.io," said Amin. "The entire cloud is our own private cloud."
Amin's business is also providing the operational support systems and related apps from its Symworld store for accounting, configuration, fault management, performance management and security.
As for external partners, much of 1&1's spending will go on remote radio heads being supplied by NEC, an electronics giant that figures prominently in Rakuten's own 5G rollout in Japan. Cisco, another company Rakuten has used for its Japanese deployment, is providing Internet Protocol transport technology, said Amin. And Mavenir, a US software developer, is stumping up the core network products.
The latter choice is especially interesting because Mavenir competes directly against Altiostar in the market for RAN software. While the core is a separate domain, a successful working relationship between Mavenir and Symphony would demonstrate to the industry that Rakuten is able to collaborate with sometime rivals in its systems integrator role.
https://www.lightreading.com/the-edge/...d/d-id/779622?_mc=RSS_LR_EDT
According to the trend chart of the number of cancellations released by Rakuten, the number of cancellations increased from immediately after the announcement until the end of June when “Rakuten UN-LIMIT VI” ended. Mikitani, chairman and president of the company, explains that the number of churners has been trending downward recently.
Rakuten expects an improvement in unit price per subscriber (ARPU) in the future due to an increase in the percentage of users with 1GB or more, as well as an increase in the percentage of main line users and heavy users. are announcing.
In addition, Mr. Mikitani emphasized that the expansion of the company’s network will reduce capital investment, reduce roaming costs to partner lines, and improve profitability.
https://iphonewired.com/news/453200/
By Andrew Cohen July 12, 2022
https://www.sporttechie.com/...l-warriors-partnership-brand-awareness
Rakuten EXPO 2022 is one of Rakuten Ichiba's biggest events to not only share the vision and strategy of Rakuten Ichiba, but also deepen the connections between merchants and offer opportunities to learn. It was the first EXPO to be held in a hybrid offline/online style. We report from the scene and share highlights from Mickey's speech, as well as comments from participating merchants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeBXzWhTPi8
Posted on August 23, 2022
Open RAN is fast becoming mainstream.
Slowly but surely, Open RAN has taken center stage in the world of virtualized Radio Access Networks (RAN). The number of service providers adopting Open RAN approaches has been steadily increasing every year.
In 2021, mobile network operators (MNOs) tested pilot projects in emerging and rural markets. This year, government funding for R&D programs in the US, Japan, and Europe has been rapidly scaled up to enhance market readiness.
Along with Open RAN adoption methodologies, Tier 1 operational initiatives are also working on digital maturity and network lifecycle management. The telecom industry is on its way to embracing innovations in RAN technologies and prioritizing an advanced, open, and disaggregated network architecture.
With Open RAN, telecom companies can mix and match components designed by different equipment vendors, enhancing interoperability and expanding market competition. It will let network service providers choose high-grade equipment at the best possible prices while reducing business and operational costs.
https://www.stl.tech/blog/open-ran-optimise-tco-in-a-smarter-way/
Flexible technology testing environment offered to global partners; Promoting R&D into Open vRAN based on O-RAN specifications
Tokyo, August 23, 2022 - Rakuten Mobile, Inc. today announced the opening of the Rakuten Mobile Open Innovation Lab, a technology verification environment that utilizes the technologies and experience acquired by the operator through building its Open vRAN commercial mobile network. As of today, the virtualized Open vRAN verification platform will be made available to operators, vendors, and other enterprises, in addition to academic organizations. Rakuten Mobile will also expand the lab to accelerate the research and development of Open vRAN in Japan and globally, contributing to the promotion of disaggregated architecture and containerization to run cloud native network functions on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. This new approach to mobile networks brings many benefits to carriers, including reduction of the total cost of ownership (TCO), increased automation and innovation.
Open vRAN is a type of mobile technology where the protocols and interfaces for the various equipment in the radio access network (RAN) are open, enabling interoperability between equipment and systems from different vendors. As demands on mobile networks diversify, Open vRAN makes it possible to build multi-vendor networks, allowing operators to flexibly procure network equipment and reduce network construction costs. In addition, the open standards offer greater security and transparency in the RAN.
In Japan, Rakuten Mobile has deployed Rakuten Mobile Open Innovation Lab functions in the Rakuten Cloud Innovation Lab and will also provide Open RAN technology verification environments at Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Engineering Nakao Laboratory campuses, both of which are remotely connected to the lab. Rakuten Mobile is also carrying out joint research and development*1 with the Tokyo Institute of Technology*2 and the University of Tokyo as part of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) “Beyond 5G R&D Promotion Project.”
As partner companies are able to connect to the lab remotely, Open vRAN technology verification is made possible without traveling to the testing location or building a verification environment on site, thus accelerating and simplifying the development process. Rakuten Mobile also has the ability to build technology verification capabilities in facilities owned by partner companies.
Rakuten Mobile is providing its commercial mobile service on an Open vRAN mobile network that is compliant with the technical specifications for Open vRAN defined by the O-RAN ALLIANCE*3. Rakuten Mobile’s network architecture meets the requirements for foundation components for networks in the Beyond 5G era as defined by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC)*4. By sharing its experience with partner companies through the lab, Rakuten Mobile aims to make it easier for operators to carry out complex multi-vendor end-to-end connectivity tests and O-RAN specification compliance and interoperability tests.
The Rakuten Mobile Open Innovation Lab utilizes the same architecture as Rakuten Mobile’s flexible, virtualized network in which the distributed unit (vDU) and centralized unit (vCU) are disaggregated. This platform makes it possible to execute test cases from multiple locations and realize a flexible Open vRAN deployment that matches the partner company’s network requirements.
Looking ahead to “Beyond 5G,” the Rakuten Mobile Open Innovation Lab aims to support trials to optimize network design and operation through the vRAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), an intelligent component which manages and controls the RAN. Rakuten Mobile is also developing AI applications for the RIC platform, which is expected to automatically improve the performance and stability of Open vRAN, for example by detecting and predicting traffic and anomalies on the network.
https://corp.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/english/news/...20220823_01_lang_en