Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
The company previously predicted sales would top $5 billion by end-2024, with cumulative shipments of macro and small sales forecast to exceed 1 million, but noted it raised its projections to account for the state of the market.
It now expects open RAN to account for 10 percent of the overall RAN market by end-2025, with “healthy traction in multiple regions” driving 2 million in cumulative kit shipments over the slightly longer forecast period.
https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/...0approach%20grows
A more measured assessment comes from Omdia, a sister company of Light Reading. In updated forecasts out this month, it says open RAN is likely to generate about $3.2 billion in annual revenues by 2024, giving it about 9.4% of the total 4G and 5G market.
https://www.lightreading.com/open-ran/...024-says-omdia/d/d-id/765889
Currencycloud launches in Singapore to drive Asia-Pacific expansion
Posted On
22nd April 2021
Currencycloud, a leading provider of B2B embedded cross-border solutions, today announced it has officially opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Singapore. The new office, located in Raffles Quay, will serve as a hub to drive the London-based Fintech’s expansion throughout the wider region. Rohit Narang, Co-founder & COO of Trusting Social, a big data analytics firm specializing in credit scoring on alternate data, also joins the company as Managing Director for the region.
Asia has a giant payments market. According to a McKinsey study, it is already the largest contributor to global payments revenue and is expected to surpass $1 trillion by 2023*. Covid-19 has created a surge in digital payments, generating an urgent demand for even more seamless cross-border payments.
Currencycloud processes over $3 billion in international payments each month and Asia-Pacific is one of its fastest-growing regions, with associated transaction volumes trebling across its platform in 2020. It already names many of the region’s most innovative brands as clients, including TranSwap, NIUM, Wallex, XTransfer, WireBarley, PicoPay, CurrenC & Geoswift. The company expects to hire double digit number of employees by the end of 2021 and is applying for a license with the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Launched in 2012, Currencycloud has processed more than $65bn to over 180 countries, working with banks and Fintechs around the world, including Starling Bank, Revolut, Penta and Lunar. Based in London with offices in New York, Amsterdam and Cardiff, Currencycloud works with partners including Visa, Dwolla, and Mambu to deliver simple, clear financial infrastructure solutions for clients. They are regulated in the UK, US, and the EU.
https://www.currencycloud.com/company/news/item/...pacific-expansion/
4/22/2021
"To help smaller companies to scale and compete with the dominant, incumbent equipment manufacturers, the US government should provide other financial incentives, such as loan guarantees, tax incentives, and funded demonstration networks to propel our mobile carriers to pursue open RAN deployments," argued John Baker of Mavenir, a top open RAN vendor. Baker pointed out that the Germans have already allocated $412 million to open RAN, while the Brits have earmarked $350 million for the technology.
During the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Baker suggested the US government appropriate $3 billion to help open RAN.
New York lawmaker Kathleen Rice, a Democrat, asked Diane Rinaldo, director of the Open RAN Policy Coalition trade group, if $3 billion would be good. Yes, $3 billion would be good, Rinaldo said.
However, JMA Wireless CEO John Mezzalingua described the $3 billion figure as "an important start." His company is another open RAN vendor.
https://www.lightreading.com/open-ran/...to-washington/d/d-id/768949?
Written byRuby Hinchliffe
23rd April 2021
Triple growth
Since its inception in 2012, Currencycloud has raised some $160.2 million in funding from heavyweight backers such as BNP Paribas, Visa, and SBI Group.
In December, the fintech said it was fast approaching 500 customers. Familiar names include Starling Bank, Revolut, Penta and Visa.
The fintech claims to have doubled payment volumes since the UK’s March lockdown.
But its Asia-Pacific transactions trebled last year, outpacing the company’s average growth across its older markets.
“Asia Pacific is a hotbed of financial innovation, and we anticipate significant ongoing growth of fintech companies across the region,” says Todd Latham, the company’s chief growth officer.
“We aim to provide the pipes for all these Fintech companies when moving money across borders.”
Taking Big Tech inspiration
In all, Currencycloud processes $3 billion in international payments each month. Its customers across Asia-Pacific already include TranSwap, Nium, Wallex, XTransfer, and PicoPay.
https://www.fintechfutures.com/2021/04/...-with-new-singapore-office/
„Additionally, Rakuten Mobile will support all iPhone models running iOS 14.4 and later (*1,*2) soon.“
*1 Information about each iPhone model and the functions they support, will be released on the product page on the Rakuten Mobile website after iPhone becomes available from Rakuten Mobile.
*2 Rakuten Mobile recommends that customers update to the latest version of iOS when using an iPhone with Rakuten Mobile's service.
https://corp.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/english/news/press/2021/0422_01/
Aje is a contemporary Australian fashion brand dedicated to raw beauty, tough femininity and effortless cool.
MARKETING OBJECTIVE
After Aje identified an opportunity to better manage its Search portfolio in Australia and New Zealand, the retailer reached out to Rakuten Advertising to help implement new processes in order to create efficiencies and best practices. Rakuten Advertising was given the opportunity to overhaul and manage Aje’s Search account structure, with an aim to improve ROI, grow revenue, simplify reporting and boost performance.
STRATEGY
Rakuten Advertising took full control over the management of Aje’s Search accounts and implemented key processes and strategies to meet Aje’s objectives, including migrating its entire portfolio over to Kenshoo, a digital advertising platform designed to connect marketers and customers for search, social and e-commerce.
RESULTS
After Rakuten Advertising took full control over Aje’s Search portfolio, the brand has shown significant improvements across the board and benefited from simplified reporting, diligent management and newly introduced best practices. There is a strong correlation between implementing effective search strategies, following best practices, having access to timely reports and producing positive outcomes. Bid strategy continues to form a crucial component to search account health alongside campaign optimisations made by Rakuten Advertising’s search experts. Aje’s key objective was to increase ROI.
By using KBP bid strategy and applying daily optimisations, Rakuten Advertising has successfully increased Aje’s ROI by 25% YoY.
Additionally, Aje’s search portfolio also experienced:
• An increase in CTR by 514% after optimisating keyword targeting and ad copy.
• An increase in conversion by 113% after implementing category-specific landing pages.
• A reduction in CPC by 26% as a result of the implementation of broad, phrase and exact match types.
https://go.rakutenadvertising.com/hubfs/Aje-Success-Story.pdf
Open is the best way to ensure new innovation can benefit the users and the networks. With openness, there is less risk of high-value, not-yet-invented items being blocked from entering the market. The market has been controlled by a few players for a long time and has remained stuck in the existing model. Technically, there has been leaders driving technical innovation — quite successfully, I may add — but maybe not so much in terms of business practices and industry structure. Unlocking interfaces, business practices and spectrum will open the door for more fundamental rethinks of what this business should look like.
Taking a step out from the traditional macro deployments, Open RAN enables new models of deployment, new actors and market growth, attracting new capital to be invested in dedicated coverage. The in-building coverage market and private networking market have a lot to gain from Open RAN, where downscales macro solution carries complexity and overhead. Open RAN solutions are built from the ground up on virtualization, offering simplicity and low entry-level costs. A fresh piece of software (SW) made specifically for indoor and private networks will be easier to configure and manage.
Wi-Fi, another arm of wireless access, is far more open to innovation based on spectrum access. Wi-Fi also has lower technical entry barriers, even as mobile networks are being rolled out, gobbling up a magnitude more traffic based on need and decentralized investment decisions. We could see a new surge of investments in coverage and capacity based on opening the mobile networking model.
https://www.rcrwireless.com/20210422/open_ran/...ndustry-reader-forum
Most important message: „Rakuten Mobile has also announced it will support all iPhone models running iOS 14.4 and later.“
Rakuten Mobile to offer iPhone 12 Lineup, AirTag, AirPods Pro in Japan
Friday 23 April 2021 | 08:02 CET | News
Japanese operator Rakuten Mobile will start selling Apple devices including the iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini and iPhone SE on 30 April. Rakuten Mobile has also announced it will support all iPhone models running iOS 14.4 and later.
https://www.telecompaper.com/news/...ag-airpods-pro-in-japan--1380571
Rakuten Securities: Revenues increased 36,9% YoY, Net Income 33,5% YoY for the first quarter of 2021
Results for the three months ended March 31, 2021 (January 1, 2021 to March 31, 2021)
Consolidated Operating Results* (Millions of yen, rounded down)
Operating revenue Net operating revenue Operating income Net income
Three months ended March 31, 2021
23,634 22,530 5,638 3,577
Three months ended March 31, 2020
17,262 16,737 3,893 2,680
Rakuten Securities: Revenues increased 33,5% YoY, Net Income 35,3% for the last 12 months
Results for the 12 months ended March 31, 2021 (April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021)
Consolidated Operating Results* (Millions of yen, rounded down)
Operating revenue Net operating revenue Operating income Net income
April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021
78,678 75,290 16,840 9,566
April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020
58,932 56,501 11,857 7,070
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2021/0427_02.html
Innoeye is an engineering technology solutions company and is engaged in designing, developing and delivering end-to-end Telecom Operation Support System Solutions (OSS), Business Support System Solutions (BSS). The OSS and automation platform is utilized by a variety of companies (traditional operator, new operator, cable companies) for CEM cloudification, 5G, and process automation. While Innoeye PVT serves as an offshore development centre for the technology solutions, Innoeye LLC holds the intellectual property and executes the contracts with customers. Innoeye LLC also serves as the holding company for Innoeye Japan and Innoeye PTE (Singapore). Innoeye serves some of world’s major companies including Nokia, Telstra, BT and Charter Spectrum.
While the deal has been signed, it is expected to close post completion of certain conditions precedent. The transaction is valued at USD 150,000,000 (United States Dollars One Hundred Fifty Million), approximately equivalent to INR 11.2 billion.
https://www.jsalaw.com/deals-matter/...ivate-limited-and-innoeye-llc/
Since inception of the new network, InnoEye has been helping Rakuten Mobile achieve that vision with advanced OSS (operational support systems), BSS (business support systems), automation, and orchestration solutions from its offices in India, the U.S., Singapore and Japan. In October 2020, the company became an official member of the Rakuten family.
A bright future
Gupta isn’t shy about voicing his ambitions for a futuristic network. “We want to play a key role in the journey of transforming the overall industry,” the InnoEye CEO says. “Joining hands with Rakuten provides us with a unique ability to contribute towards this large industry movement and create a highly innovative cloud-based communication platform that is open, scalable, and highly secure.”
When working with Rakuten, optimism is the name of the game. “We are optimistic about the future and we share Rakuten Mobile’s customer-centric philosophy of not just connecting people, but also being a leader in the telecommunications space,” Gupta says. “The Rakuten Communications Platform will disrupt the industry and pave the way for the next level of innovations.”
https://rakuten.today/blog/innoeye-delivers-for-rakuten-mobile.html
Rakuten Group, Inc. (hereinafter “Rakuten”) announces today that Rakuten and Japan Post Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Japan Post”), a subsidiary of Japan Post Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Japan Post Holdings”) have signed an integration contract (hereinafter “Integration Contract”) where Rakuten and Japan Post agree that Rakuten establishes JP Rakuten Logistics, LLC. (hereinafter “JP Rakuten Logistics”) as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rakuten, and succeeds the logistics business conducted by Rakuten to JP Rakuten Logistics (hereinafter the “Company Split”), and Rakuten and Japan Post subsequently acquires the equity interest of JP Rakuten Logistics (hereinafter the “Investment”). Rakuten and Japan Post also signed a shareholders agreement (hereinafter the “Shareholders Agreement”) regarding the operation of JP Rakuten Logistics.
Ownership ratio: Before the Investment) Rakuten 100%
(After the Investment) Japan Post 50.1%, Rakuten 49.9%
Capital: At the time of establishment of the new company scheduled for May 2021, Rakuten’s investment ratio in the new company will be 100%. With the Investment, Rakuten’s investment ratio in the new company will be 49.9%, and Japan Post's investment ratio will be 50.1%
Business: After the start of the joint venture, Rakuten plans to outsource logistics operations to the new company.
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2021/0428_03.html
7 hours ago
This month, Rakuten Mobile celebrated its first anniversary as the newest mobile carrier in Japan. And over the past year, industry eyes from around the world have been on the operator’s fully virtualized cloud-native network to see how the revolutionary architecture actually performs.
“When we decided to take up the challenge of building the world’s first cloud-native open RAN mobile network, we had expectations that Rakuten Mobile would compete with Japan’s other network operators,” commented Rakuten Mobile CTO Tareq Amin. “But winning Opensignal awards for upload speed and voice app experience just one year from the full launch of our mobile network is beyond our expectations. I’m incredibly proud of the team at Rakuten Mobile for everything we’ve accomplished.”
Voice App Experience
Rakuten Mobile was named Japan’s winner for Voice App Experience with a score of 83.1. Opensignal’s Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services—for example mobile voice apps such as Rakuten Viber, LINE, WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger etc.—using a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)-based approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality.
Upload Speed Experience
Rakuten Mobile won the Upload Speed Experience award for the second time. Rakuten Mobile’s score of 11.6 Mbps came out nearly 2 Mbps faster than the second-place finisher.
https://rakuten.today/blog/opensignal-japan-awards-rakuten-mobile.html
Company name: JP Rakuten Logistics, Inc.
Capital: 100 million yen
Shareholding ratio: Japan Post 50.1%, Rakuten 49.9%
Business overview: Logistics business
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2021/...category=corp%20ir
Logistics
Creation of shared logistics centers
Creation of shared delivery and pick-up systems
Collaborations and initiatives between Japan Post and Rakuten to expand usage of Rakuten Fulfillment Centers and Japan Post’s “Yu-Pack” parcels
Establishment of a new joint venture by Japan Post and Rakuten to conduct the above initiatives (see section 2 below for more details), and joint commercialization of a digital transformation platform for logistics (Target: July 2021)
Mobile
Utilization of post office event space to create customer counters to accept new signup applications for Rakuten Mobile and other functions
Utilization of Japan Post Group’s post office and delivery network for marketing initiatives
Conducting trials ahead of nationwide implementation of above initiatives. Trials planned to start at approximately 10 post offices in May 2021.
Digital transformation
Consultation and discussion on Japan Post Group and Rakuten Group personnel exchange to support the digital transformation of Japan Post Group
Additional support from Rakuten Group to support the digital transformation of Japan Post Group
Financial services
Preparations to offer a Japan Post Bank Design branded Rakuten Card in 2021
Consultation and discussion regarding a credit card to be issued by Japan Post Bank using the Rakuten Card platform, based on progress of Japan Post Bank Design branded Rakuten Card
Consultation and discussion on other cashless payment-related collaboration
Consultation and discussion on collaboration in the insurance field
E-commerce
Consultation and discussion on sales of products offered by Japan Post on Rakuten-operated websites
Consultation and discussion on accepting order applications for products sold on Rakuten Ichiba at post offices
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2021/...category=corp%20ir
VON SEBASTIAN ESSNER AM 28. APRIL 2021 - 8:11
Rakuten TV hat heute die Erweiterung seines AVOD-Angebots mit dem Launch von mehr als 90 kostenlosen linearen Kanälen in 42 europäischen Märkten angekündigt. Die Plattform wird die besten globalen und lokalen Unterhaltungsprogramme von den weltweit führenden internationalen Kanälen, renommierten lokalen Content-Anbietern und kuratierten eigenen Themenkanälen zusammenführen. Das neue Angebot wird das Nutzererlebnis verbessern, indem es noch mehr kostenlose Unterhaltung rund um die Uhr bietet. Die Einführung wird schrittweise erfolgen, wobei in den nächsten Monaten ein weiterer Ausbau geplant ist.
Mit diesem Launch unterstreicht Rakuten TV sein einzigartiges Angebot als einzige europäische Plattform, die TVOD (Transactional Video-on-Demand), AVOD (Advertising Video-on-Demand) und SVOD (Subscription Video-on-Demand) Services kombiniert. Rakuten TV ist in 43 europäischen Ländern verfügbar und erreicht dank des gebrandeten Fernbedienungsbuttons und der vorinstallierten App derzeit mehr als 90 Millionen Haushalte auf den Geräten de rSmart-TV-Hersteller.
https://audiovision.de/...neare-kanaele-in-42-europaeischen-maerkten/
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2021/...category=corp%20ir
To enable software and hardware from different vendors to be onboarded and integrated seamlessly, the product teams at Rakuten Mobile design product frameworks upfront. That includes templates, policies, interfaces and payloads. This DNA and thought process is not limited to onboarding, but to operations as well.
By working hand-in-hand with its suppliers, Rakuten Mobile acquired the detailed expertise it needs to be able to mix and match the best applications, systems and solutions. “We have built frameworks, templates and integration platforms,” explains Atri. “Today, if we need to replace one of our partners with another one, we know what to change. For the radio network, for example, we had to go through 10 to 12 different spreadsheets of parameters, values, rules and logic. We went through the detail of each and every parameter: What is static, why it is static, what is dynamic and why it has to be dynamic.”
Rakuten Mobile had to do this work in-house because no other operator in the world had deployed a fully cloud-native open RAN mobile network before – there wasn’t a body of existing knowledge it could tap into. “We did it end-to-end,” explains Atri.
Rakuten Mobile’s hands-on approach has enabled it to employ innovative technologies developed by ‘challenger vendors’ such as Altiostar, Robin.io, Airspan, QCT and NEC, rather than simply deploying monolithic systems from the major vendors.
By building end-to-end frameworks that support interoperability, Rakuten Mobile is developing a playbook to guide other operators who want to deploy an advanced cloud-native network using technologies from multiple partners. Those playbooks are part of the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP).
The RCP marketplace offers apps for the entire telecommunications network lifecycle, from planning and building to operating and enhancing. It also hosts apps for network related tasks such as asset management, OSS, BSS, workflows, rollout, field force management, orchestration, observability, ticket and incident management.
The platform itself is built on an API-centric approach, using configuration templates. It is app, service and vendor agnostic. This means mobile network operators can work with the technology partners of their choice from the various options available on the marketplace, and configure apps for various network tasks according to their own specific needs.
https://rakuten.today/blog/mobile-tech-explained-interoperability.html
Rakuten Mobile deploys drones to help accelerate base station rollout
4 days ago
Rakuten Mobile’s revolutionary cellular network just celebrated its first birthday. But that doesn’t mean work is slowing down; network coverage is expanding faster than ever. In January, Rakuten CEO Mickey Mikitani announced that by summer 2021, the Rakuten Mobile network will reach 96% of Japan’s population - a target that was originally slated for 2026.
This isn’t Rakuten Mobile’s first project with drones and cellular antennas. “Since April 2020, Rakuten Mobile has actually been using drones to inspect completed base stations,” Uenaka reveals. “This new project is the second stage of our drone strategy, in which we use drones to inspect potential antenna sites before we start construction.”
Using drones, however, the team can do away with these lengthy, costly preparations, helping towards achieving the target of some 44,000 locations across Japan by this summer.
“Until now, it had taken us around an hour to inspect each site. But with the drones, we’re done in 10 or 15 minutes,” Shibuya reveals. “If there are several sites clustered together, we can visit 5 or 6 in a single day. And for the 60 or so sites we’ve inspected with drones so far, we’ve seen significant acceleration of the base station deployment process.”
https://rakuten.today/rakuten-innovation/...base-station-rollout.html
Rakuten narrowly wins the Voice App Experience award with a score of 83.1 on our 100 point scale, as former winner SoftBank scored 82.7. But there is little difference between all four operators' scores as NTT DoCoMo scored 81.7 and au 81.8. Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — for example, using mobile apps such as LINE, WhatsApp, Skype or Facebook Messenger for real-time voice chat.
https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2021/04/japan/...etwork-experience
By Rakuten Rewards
Apr 29, 2021 Updated 7 hrs ago
https://www.ttownmedia.com/news/state/...-5b54-a45b-70a613866c45.html
Provided by Accesswire
Apr 28, 2021 7:00 PM GMT+2
Cinedigm is bringing vintage film and television channels The Film Detective and The Lone Star Channel to leading European VOD platform Rakuten TV
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / April 28, 2021 / Cinedigm (NASDAQ:CIDM) announced today that the Company is launching its classic film and television channel The Film Detective and its classic western channel The Lone Star Channel on Rakuten TV in 36 European countries.
Rakuten TV offers thousands of hours of high-quality content, including the latest releases from Hollywood and local studios, TV series, documentaries and more, to audiences across Europe. It is the first video-on-demand platform in Europe to support a combination of TVOD (Transactional video-on-demand), AVOD (Advertising video-on-demand) and SVOD (Subscription video-on-demand) services.
The Film Detective channel on Rakuten TV will bring audiences hundreds of classic vintage films and television series, ranging from critically acclaimed titles like Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn's Charade (1963) to B-movie classics like Richard Kiel's Eegah (1962). Classic television series available on Rakuten TV will include The Carol Burnett Show (1967-1978), The Johnny Carson Show (1962-1992), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-1971), and You Bet Your Life (1950-1961).
The Lone Star Channel on Rakuten TV will feature hundreds of films and television episodes from the Old West, including singing cowboys Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Tex Ritter. John Wayne will be featured in a daily "Dinner with the Duke" evening program, including John Wayne classics like Angel and the Badman (1947) and McLintock! (1963).
"Our partnership with Rakuten TV represents an exciting opportunity to expand the global reach of our classic film and television library," said Phil Hopkins, President of The Film Detective. "Rakuten TV's commitment to providing unparalleled cinematic experiences perfectly aligns with The Film Detective and The Lone Star Channel's mission to bring exceptional vintage film and television to audiences with the convenience of today's streaming technology."
https://www.morningstar.com/news/accesswire/...-channel-on-rakuten-tv
https://www.timebulletin.com/...e-series-sales-at-the-roppongi-store/
Rakuten Mobile holds a ceremony to launch iphone series sales
https://www.timebulletin.com/...e-series-sales-at-the-roppongi-store/