Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
Look Out Amazon, Here Comes...Rakuten?
Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten announced on Tuesday it is acquiring Ebates for $1 billion.
The acquisition, which Rakuten hinted at last week, is part of the Japanese company’s push to grow its base beyond its domestic market and hopefully, become a global player. Having made some $1.2 billion acquisitions to date along these lines, this is Rakuten’s most ambitious move to date.
However, investors are dubious that the company can absorb yet another foreign acquisition, much less one the size of Ebates, despite Rakuten’s strong cash position.
Then there is the ever-present Amazon, which dominates the e-commerce market in the U.S. Few believe it will falter in the face of Chinese giant Alibaba, much less a Rakuten-Ebates combo.
Rakuten Goes Forth
Not surprisingly, Rakuten says it is undaunted. For starters, it has assembled a very interesting mix of acquisitions. There is messaging app Viber, which it purchased for $900 million in February, the Canadian ebook offering Kobo, Spanish video service Wuaki.tv, Viki, a digital content platform and Buy.com.
Now it has picked up Ebates.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikamorphy/2014/09/...ere-comes-rakuten/
Sue Marek | March 23, 2025
During a panel hosted by Ookla at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on March 4, Luke Kehoe, Ookla’s European analyst, moderated a discussion about open RAN featuring top mobile executives from Boost Mobile (formerly Dish Wireless) in the U.S., Paradise Mobile in Bermuda, and 1&1 in Germany.
The open vendor ecosystem of open RAN was also a key differentiator for 1&1. Michael Martin, CEO of 1&1 Mobilfunk, said that open RAN enabled the company to build a highly modular network with standardized components. He said the operator launched its network in December 2023 and started offering its enhanced mobile broadband (EMBB) services right away.
Since its launch, 1&1 has migrated six million mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) customers onto its network at a rate of 50,000 customers per day. “That’s a massive achievement,” Martin said. He emphasized that this success in managing a complex customer migration while building a network capable of supporting a large user base in a short period offers valuable lessons for brownfield operators elsewhere aiming to incorporate open RAN into their networks in the coming years.
https://www.ookla.com/articles/...an-technology-is-a-winning-strategy
When reported in Japanese currency, Symphony's full year revenues came in at 85bn yen ($557.2m), up by 62% from 2023. Symphony continues to gain market traction for its portfolio of technology products, which includes Open RAN systems.
https://www.google.de/search?
q=what+are+the+revenues+of+rakuten+symphony%2C+2025&sca_esv=bb656345beb648fb&biw=1591&bih=868&ei=gqDpZ6OqMtWJ9u8Pq_v2mAk&ved=0ahUKEwij89DrybKMAxXVhP0HHau9HZM4FBDh1QMIEA&uact=5&oq=what+are+the+revenues+of+rakuten+symphony%2C+2025&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiL3doYXQgYXJlIHRoZSByZXZlbnVlcyBvZiByYWt1dGVuIHN5bXBob255LCAyMDI1MgUQIRigATIFECEYoAFIjEFQxhpY7jpwAXgBkAEAmAGOAaAB7wSqAQM1LjK4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgigAqMFwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR8ICBRAhGJ8FmAMAiAYBkAYCkgcDNi4yoAeBLg&sclient=gws-wiz-serp
March 31, 2025
The new asset-building app iGrow from Rakuten Securities, which has already received enthusiastic feedback from users, is an innovative app which allows users to easily view their assets held in Rakuten Securities, including iDeCo and NISA, as well as their deposit balances in Rakuten Bank. The groundbreaking features of iGrow are a result of the passionate development efforts of young Rakutenians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ifKn0nU66Y
by Fabio Duarte
Last Updated: March 20, 2025
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/top-social-media-platforms
ttps://www.ariva.de/aktien/rakuten-group-inc-aktie/kurse/handelsplaetze
Diesen Pessimismus teile ich nicht.
April 01, 2025
Rakuten showcased groundbreaking innovations and partnerships under the theme "Intelligent Growth" at Mobile World Congress (MWC) Barcelona 2025. Many industry leaders took to the stage at the booth including executives from Cisco, Tech Mahindra, and Airspan, partners of Rakuten Symphony's Real Open RAN Licensing Program, who advocated for its simple, scalable, and cost-effective software platform. Mickey and AST SpaceMobile's CEO were also on stage, where plans to offer "continuous commercial service" within 2026 were discussed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0NI91Oi2Xw
April 01, 2025
From our Rakuten Booth in MWC Barcelona 2025, Sheheryar ‘SK’ Khakwani, VP of Partner Alliance and Business Governance for Rakuten symphony hosts this fascinating panel on Open Partner Ecosystems with our four panelists, Puneet Handa, Executive Officer, Rakuten Mobile & Head of Business Strategy & Portfolio at Rakuten Symphony, Harshvendra Soin, President - Asia Pacific and Japan Business at Tech Mahindra, Abbi Pilapitaya, CEO at Sierra, and Mauricio Gonzalez, Telcos Director at Isbel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgqD88Pr4Pw
By Catherine Sbeglia Nin
April 1, 2025
Telcos, too, remain committed to AI/gen AI
While concerns may be growing around gen AI’s true capabilities and impact, KT’s Chief Responsible AI Officer Soonmin Bae and Rakuten Symphony’s Chief Marketing Officer Geoff Hollingworth took the stage at last month’s Mobile World Congress Barcelona to directly address why, exactly, telcos should remain optimistic about how AI will transform their business.
One key point articulated by Hollingworth is that AI itself will solve the AI talent problem for telcos. “Telecom has been a laggard in technology innovation,” he admitted, but added that this has only really been for one reason. “Technology innovation is a software business; it’s a software domain. We have never been able to attract, retain and develop the kind of software engineers that the technology leaders have done outside ourselves… Our biggest opportunity is to use AI to become a leader in the next software wave, where we are all empowered because of our domain knowledge and we’re not limited now because of our lack with coding skills.”
https://www.rcrwireless.com/20250401/business-investing/gen-ai-gartner
Tokyo, April 3, 2025 – Rakuten Symphony today announced that, alongside its partner company CYTUR, it has obtained an Innovation Endorsement for Products & Solutions from ClassNK, a Japan-based leader in maritime certifications, for its maritime cybersecurity service Rakuten Maritime.
Launched in December 2024, Rakuten Maritime provides comprehensive cybersecurity solutions that safeguard vessels across their entire lifecycle. Rakuten Symphony partnered with CYTUR, a South Korean cybersecurity startup, to develop Rakuten Maritime.
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2025/0403_01.html
7 March 2025
Raghunath Hariharan is CTO, Rakuten Symphony. In this revealing interview with TMN editor Keith Dyer he explains how the efforts to disaggregate mobile networks almost went too far, and describes the need for an intermediate approach that provides a level of pre-integration, while remaining open.
Rakuten Symphony itself has had to change, and has successfully migrated its Open RAN business to a licensing model, which will enable it to open up enterprise and private networks opportunities via its licensee partners.
https://the-mobile-network.com/2025/03/23287/
TOKYO and SANTA CLARA, Calif., April 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Rakuten Symphony, Inc. and Nirmata, Inc., today announced successful testing and certification for Kyverno, the policy engine designed for Kubernetes, on Rakuten Cloud-Native Platform and Rakuten Cloud-Native Storage. The integrated solution will allow Rakuten Cloud customers to leverage Kyverno to enforce security and policies in their Kubernetes® deployments.
"Rakuten Cloud offers ease-of-use automation with industry-leading features including data security and compliance enforcement in cloud-native environments," said Partha Seetala, President of Cloud Business Unit at Rakuten Symphony. "With Nirmata and Kyverno, Rakuten Cloud customers in sensitive and critical industries like health care and finance benefit from Kyverno's policy-as-a-code approach."
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/...-solutions-302414494.html
April 3, 2025
Rakuten TV Top Movies and Rakuten TV Action will be available through Virgin Media’s TV guide and searchable via voice control.
https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2025/04/03/...kuten-tv-fast-channels/
April 04, 2025
Rakuten International CEO Amit Patel, Rakuten TV CEO & President Cédric Dufour and Rakuten Viber VP of Marketing Atanas Raykov took to the Rakuten Booth Theater stage at MWC Barcelona 2025 to outline how Rakuten International businesses are embracing cutting-edge tech and a consumer-first approach to grow the global Rakuten ecosystem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wkFJyPEcvk
April 04, 2025
Rakuten GORA launched a new AI golf swing analysis tool on the Rakuten Golf Score Management App. This tool was developed in cooperation with computer vision experts from Rakuten Institute of Technology (RIT), Keio University's Aoki Media Sensing Lab, and Rakuten India. It allows users to upload a video of their golf swing, which is then analyzed in nine phases from address to finish. In just a few minutes, the multiple AI models will work together to return a thorough analysis of 43 checkpoints and a provide comprehensive score, like a golf instructor that is available anytime, anywhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmT9QnFJ9Ps
Rakuten Advertising introduced Upsellit to the SHEIKE affiliate program as a way to drive scale and overcome cart abandonment challenges. The results have exceeded SHEIKE’s expectations. Upsellit is now a top-performing publisher on the SHEIKE affiliate program and continues to demonstrate the importance of tech solution partners through strong performance.
The results speak for themselves:
+15.78% of new customers
+15.95% of total sales
+$40 ROAS
https://rakutenadvertising.com/en-au/resources/...ng-sheike-upsellit/
“We have been working on the very challenging Rakuten Mobile project for some time now, and it has become clear that its contribution to the Rakuten ecosystem is significant in many ways. As you may have seen from today’s presentation, the entire group is growing, and the mobile factor plays a major role in this. I think that increasing the number of Rakuten Mobile users to 10 million or 20 million has proven to solidify our consumer-facing services. Additionally, taking on such a challenging project has made the entire group more robust. It has fostered a culture of focusing on operational efficiency and working capital, which has strengthened the group’s overall teamwork. Regarding the second question about achieving EBITDA profitability this year, we plan to continue what we have been doing while also increasing advertising revenue through Rakuten Mobile. We know that encouraging 5G usage will increase data ARPU, so we will focus on that as well. As mentioned earlier, we are strong among people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, but our market share drops significantly among those aged 55 and older, particularly those over 60. We need to improve our approach to older demographics. Additionally, while we are strong in urban areas, we are relatively weak in regional cities and prefectures, so we will strengthen our regional strategies. We also aim to further enhance synergies within the Rakuten Group. Lastly, we will focus on generating profits by selling our software overseas through Rakuten Symphony. This could potentially become a core business for the Rakuten Group. Since our international business has also become profitable, we will continue to strengthen this area as well.”
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/investors/
"Lastly, we will focus on generating profits by selling our software overseas through Rakuten Symphony. This could potentially become a core business for the Rakuten Group. Since our international business has also become profitable, we will continue to strengthen this area as well.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmSiS72AXtM&t=5s
Pune, April 02, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mobile VoIP Market Size Analysis:
“The Mobile VoIP Market size was USD 50.18 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach USD 184.19 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 15.59% over the forecast period of 2024-2032.”
Major Players Analysis Listed in this Report are:
Apple Inc. (FaceTime, iMessage)
Google LLC (Google Voice, Google Meet)
Microsoft (Skype, Microsoft Teams)
RingCentral, Inc. (RingCentral Office, RingCentral Video)
Nextiva (Nextiva VoIP, Nextiva Video Conferencing)
Grasshopper (Grasshopper VoIP, Virtual Receptionist)
Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco Webex, Cisco Jabber)
Aircall (Aircall VoIP, Aircall Integrations)
Mitel Networks Corp. (Mitel MiCloud Connect, Mitel VoIP Phone Systems)
Meta (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger)
Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (Zoom Phone, Zoom Meetings)
CX (3CX Phone System, 3CX WebRTC Phone)
8x8, Inc. (8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams, 8x8 Video Meetings)
GoTo Group (GoTo Connect, GoTo Meeting)
Twilio (Twilio Voice, Twilio Video)
Citrix Systems Inc. (Citrix Workspace, Citrix ShareFile)
Ribbon Communications (Ribbon SBC, Ribbon Analytics)
Rakuten Group, Inc. (Rakuten Mobile, Rakuten Communications Platform)
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...-market-size-surpass-140000936.html