Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SCHW?p=SCHW&.tsrc=fin-srch
16.12.2021 | 16:40
IDTechEx Discusses 4 Challenges That 5G Open RAN Advocates Must Solve
To eliminate the proprietary nature of the radio access network (RAN) system, diversify the vendor supply chain in the telecom industry, foster more innovation, and reduce the upfront and operational cost of RAN deployment telecom operators are pushing Open RAN development. But wait...what is Open RAN?
Open RAN is one of the key topics when speaking of 5G network deployment. Open RAN is a network alternative to traditional legacy RAN that allows components (including hardware and software) with interoperable standards from various suppliers to work together smoothly. In Open RAN, there are two network architecture transformations: 1. Hardware decomposition (For example, a baseband unit is separated into three sections: the central unit, the distributed unit, and the radio unit). 2. Hardware and software separation. Overall, Open RAN allows telecom operators to choose from a variety of suppliers to get the equipment that best suits their needs.
IDTechEx believes that Open RAN is an unstoppable trend. It is not a question of whether it will really take off, but rather of when there will be a large-scale deployment of Open RAN.
Overall, Open RAN is still in its early stages, and it will take these pioneers years to demonstrate the reliability of their Open RAN networks. From IDTechEx's perspective, it will be at least 5 years before the Open RAN market begins to expand rapidly in the 5G infrastructure industry.
https://www.finanznachrichten.de/...-ran-advocates-must-solve-008.htm
Viertes deutsches Mobilfunknetz entsteht
Die Planungen für das vierte deutsche Mobilfunknetz kommen voran.
United Internet rechnet 2022 bei zunehmendem Umsatz mit einem stabilen operativen Ergebnis. Der Konzernumsatz werde auf rund 5,8 Milliarden Euro steigen, teilte der MDax-Konzern am Donnerstagabend in Montabaur mit. Für das laufende Jahr werden rund 5,6 Milliarden Euro angepeilt. Der operative Gewinn (Ebitda) soll trotz zusätzlicher Investitionen 2022 mit rund 1,25 Milliarden Euro auf dem Niveau von 2021 bleiben.
Für nächstes Jahr seien deutlich höhere Investitionen insbesondere für den 5G-Netzausbau sowie die Erweiterung des Glasfasernetzes zum Anschluss der 5G-Antennen und zur Versorgung zusätzlicher Gebiete geplant. Das Investitionsvolumen dürfte bei 0,8 bis 1 Milliarde Euro liegen nach den veranschlagten rund 350 Millionen für dieses Jahr.
https://www.it-zoom.de/mobile-business/e/...lfunknetz-entsteht-29455/
THU, DEC 16, 2021
Mobile operators in the United States claim that 75 per cent of its population have 5G coverage. The majority are low-band frequencies that are, at best, as fast as its 4G predecessor. The super-fast mmWave 5G is only available in parts of some major cities, and users need to be directly below the base stations to tap on the 5G's full potential.
Meanwhile, even though South Korea maintains the world's highest download speed over 5G, its users are only able to connect to it 28 per cent of the time.
Progress is being made, though not as fast as the industry hoped for. An Open Radio Access Network (RAN) might just be the catalyst that 5G needs to finally go mainstream.
The benefits of Open RAN
In a traditional RAN, everything, from the antennas and base stations to the software that runs the RAN, is built using the vendor's proprietary equipment and technologies. While this closed infrastructure allows for more control over how different components work together, it does come with major trade-offs.
For example, proprietary hardware and software offer little room for breakthroughs and innovations. For operators that are pushing the 5G agenda, being locked into a single vendor continues to be one of the biggest hurdles.
Calls for an Open RAN - or simply, a RAN that isn't limited to a single vendor - have grown in volume over the years. The enthusiasm makes sense considering the myriad of benefits that it offers.
Open RAN exists fully on cloud. This allows operators to scale their capacity on-demand and take full advantage of cloud economics.
Operators also have a faster time-to-market than with a hardware-based infrastructure, as new features can be deployed quickly and remotely.
It operates on a set of industry-wide standards. This means operators can choose components from different vendors and combine them in different ways that make the most business sense.
Finally, Open RAN allows platforms to support Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning software, which help the network run more efficiently.
These benefits not only translate to reduced overall costs, increased operational efficiencies and faster rate of innovation, there could also be monetisation opportunities further downstream for operators.
According to a recent survey conducted by the Dell'Oro group, global Open RAN revenues have increased around five-fold in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period last year. Furthermore, Asia-Pacific is driving the surge, with Japanese operators aggressively pushing for Open RAN migration. In South-east Asia, experts estimate that 5G could add "6 per cent to 9 per cent to consumer revenues and 18 per cent to 22 per cent to enterprise revenues" by 2025. It is encouraging to see that major economies have made significant headways.
Looking ahead, Open RAN could add at least US$285 billion to gross domestic product globally by 2030, then US$91 billion annually thereafter. For these long-term financial incentives to come to fruition, regulators, operators and service providers must first embrace Open RAN. Comprehensive and continuous testing guided by proven methodologies - from simulated to real-world settings - ensures a successful pathway to real 5G adoption.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/...res-how-open-ran-can-help
Fri, December 17, 2021, 3:00 PM
"Personalized Rewards" Uses Real-Time Business Intelligence to Help Marketers Advance Their Affiliate, Cash Back Strategies
SAN MATEO,Calif., Dec. 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Rakuten has reached a milestone in the quest to make affiliate and Cash Back marketing more flexible, strategic and efficient channels for driving revenue from new and existing customers. Rakuten's Personalized Rewards capability allows brands – for the first time ever – to segment Cash Back offers on a 1:1 basis with automated audience targeting and it's driving results.
Initial campaigns show an average 128 percent lift in new shoppers and a 125 percent lift in sales.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/...s-success-first-ever-140000289.html
Leading online banks identified as main bank by companies in Japan 2021
Published by L. Kettenhofen, Dec 15, 2021
In October 2021, more than 934 companies in Japan identified Rakuten Bank as their main online bank. The Japan Net Bank, which was renamed PayPay Bank in April 2021, ranked second, with close to 750 businesses that perceived the bank as their main bank.
Leading direct banks in Japan
Direct banks offer online-only banking services without operating any physical branches. Rakuten Bank, which is part of the e-commerce group Rakuten Group, was one of the leading direct banks in Japan with more than 10 million bank accounts in 2021, followed by PayPay Bank and SBI Sumishin Net Bank with five and four million bank accounts respectively. Partly due to a shift towards digital banking services following the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19), direct banks like PayPay Bank recorded a steep increase in the number of bank accounts and transactions conducted by customers in fiscal year 2020.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1230678/...ne-banks-of-companies/
December 8, 2021 by Chris Trayhorn, Publisher of mThink Blue Book
There is a reason Rakuten Advertising has been consistently voted our #1 ranked CPS network. They offer a massive partner network; real-time, multi-touch attribution; state of the art technology; and a reputation for excellence in customer service. It’s a compelling package that goes a long way to explaining their record of sustained innovation and success.
How do they do it? We recently met with Jeff Wender, Chief Revenue Officer for Rakuten Advertising, to discuss the future of performance marketing, moving the industry past last-click, conversion-only approaches, and why he expects affiliate marketing to take a more central role in brand planning.
https://mthink.com/interview-with-rakutens-cro-jeff-wender/
DECEMBER 18, 2021
ONE of the world’s leading apps for free and easy communication, Viber has expanded its growth in the Philippines in 2021, a year marked by strategic partnerships that respond to the changing needs of the users and allowed them to explore how the app can be an integral part of their day-to-day life beyond calls and messages.
These partnerships have been Viber’s key driver for success, as the messaging app recorded 33-percent growth in monthly active users in 2021, with 31-percent increase in power users or those using Viber more than 25 days in a month. Group features like group messages and calls have remained a favorite among the users, posting the biggest gain at 110-percent upsurge. More brands and businesses have also started using Viber to communicate with their customers given that the app noted a 54-percent increase in business messages. Meanwhile, one-on-one messaging is still a must feature at 28-percent growth.
What’s more interesting is that Viber noted that over half of its users in the Philippines are part of the younger demographic with 40 percent belonging to the 25-34 age group, followed by the 35-50 at 30 percent. Filipinos below 24 years old have also started using the app more, making up 17 percent of its users, while the remaining 13 percent are comprised of 52 years old and up.
Given Viber’s performance in 2021, Tse is optimistic that Viber will be able to move into 2022 in a position of strength as it will also continue to find ways to better understand and engage Filipino users with features and local partnerships and content that resonate with them most.
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/12/18/...-the-philippines-in-2021/
Rakuten Viber is after my estimates the Rakuten-company with the lowest integration in the eco-system of Rakuten.
I am sure, that more synergies between Rakuten Viber and other group-companies are possible. And I don't understand the reason, why there not more synergies exist.
The only reason could be after my opinion, that Rakuten want to save the option for a sale of Viber. I believe, that a lot of big internet-companies would pay a lot of billions for Viber.
Telco industry disaggregation is part of a broader evolution in the domains of technology, business, the economy, and society. This evolution comprises ‘computerisation’. Computing analyses and breaks up material processes and systems into a set of logical and functional sub-components, enabling processes and products to be re-engineered, optimised, recombined in different ways, managed, and executed more efficiently and automatically.
In essence, ‘telco disaggregation’ is a term that describes a moment in time at which telecoms technology, organisations, value chains and processes are being broken up into their component parts and re-engineered, under the impact of computerisation and its synonyms: digitisation, softwarisation, virtualisation and cloud.
This is part of a new wave of societal computerisation / digitisation, which at STL Partners we call the Coordination Age. At a high level, this can be described as ‘cross-domain computerisation’: separating out processes, services and functions from multiple areas of technology, the economy and society – and optimising, recombining and automating them (i.e. coordinating them), so that they can better deliver on social, economic and environmental needs and goals. In other words, this enables scarce resources to be used more efficiently and sustainably in pursuit of individual and social needs.
NFV has computerised the network; telco cloud native subordinates it to computing.
In respect of the telecoms industry in particular, one could argue that the first wave of virtualisation (NFV and SDN), which unfolded during the 2010s, represented the computerisation and digitisation of telecoms networking. The focus of this was internal to the telecoms industry in the first instance, rather than connected to other social and technology domains and goals. It was about taking legacy, physical networking processes and functions, and redesigning and reimplementing them in software.
Then, the second wave of virtualisation (cloud-native – which is happening now) is what enables telecoms networking to play a part in the second wave of societal computerisation more broadly (the Coordination Age). This is because the different layers and elements of telecoms networks (services, network functions and infrastructure) are redefined, instantiated in software, broken up into their component parts, redistributed (logically and physically), and reassembled as a function of an increasing variety of cross-domain and cross-vertical use cases that are enabled and delivered, ultimately, by computerisation. Telecoms is disaggregated by, subordinated to, and defined and controlled by computing.
In summary, we can say that telecoms networks and operations are going through disaggregation now because this forms part of a broader societal transformation in which physical processes, functions and systems are being brought under the control of computing / IT, in pursuit of broader human, societal, economic and environmental goals.
In practice, this also means that telcos are facing increasing competition from many new types of actor, such as:
• Computing, IT and cloud players
• More specialist and agile networking providers
• And vertical-market actors – delivering connectivity in support of vertical-specific, Coordination Age use cases.
https://stlpartners.com/research/...loud-native-att-dish-and-rakuten/
Tuesday, 30 Nov 2021
MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish ride-hailing app Cabify will begin offering grocery deliveries in its Latin American markets next year after debuting the service in Spain a month ago, Lucia Chavarri, the vice president of new business, said on Tuesday.
"We will launch our Cabify Super service next year in Latin America," Chavarri told reporters at an event celebrating the multi-mobility company's 10th anniversary, in a move designed to capitalise on a pandemic-fueled boom in quick e-commerce.
The service, which allows users to place orders from nearby partnered supermarkets, is likely to land in the first Latin American market in the first half of 2022, a source within the company told Reuters.
The company operates in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. It did not specify in which market it would launch first.
Cabify expects to generate $516 million in revenue this year and outstrip its pre-pandemic core earnings, or EBITDA, in the fourth quarter of this year.
Chief Financial Officer Antonio Espana projects sales of $167 million in the period, up 43% from the same quarter of 2019.
"Going public is just one option at our disposal to finance our growth plans, and we've no concrete date so far," Espana said. "We want to keep financing our conquest of mobility and working on our recovery using our own resources for now."
https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2021/11/...-america-in-2022
https://www.iterative.vc/post/...opy-startup-ideas-from-other-markets
Can marketers bypass the cookie challenge?
By Zafar Anjum | Thursday, October 7, 2021, 3:53 PM Asia/Singapore
A cookieless world doesn’t change the ‘face’ of advertising per se, as consumers will continue to see contextual ads that are relevant to their interests, says Stuart McLennan, Senior Vice President, Asia-Pacific, Rakuten Advertising, in this interview with MartechAsia.
Advertising is undergoing a huge transformation where all main browsers (Chrome, Safari, and Firefox) have decided to ban all third-party cookies by the year 2023. This will have an impact on around 85% of the cookie ecosystem. With data security concerns on the rise, consumers are losing faith in brands and the way their data is collected, with more than half of Asia-Pacific consumers expressing concerns about safeguarding their online personas.
How are brands going to deal with this scenario and what options marketers and publishers have? We discuss this and more with Stuart McLennan, Senior Vice President, Asia-Pacific, Rakuten Advertising, in this exclusive interview.
How is a Cookieless world going to change the face of advertising?
Apart from the elimination of pervasive targeting, a cookieless world doesn’t change the ‘face’ of advertising per se, as consumers will continue to see contextual ads that are relevant to their interests. Rather, there will be significant shifts behind the scenes to better address consumer privacy.
What will change is the requirement to test new technology, and for marketers to rethink their approach to tracking, measurement and targeting. We’ll see a shift in power to a more cooperative advertiser and publisher relationship, as they work together to provide authentic and relevant advertising experiences beyond just selling and buying on-site real estate.
https://martechasia.net/features/...ters-bypass-the-cookie-challenge/
Published December 18, 2021
The Latest Released Worldwide Digital Magazine Software market study has evaluated the future growth potential of Worldwide Digital Magazine Software market and provides information and useful stats on market structure and size. The report is intended to provide market intelligence and strategic insights to help decision makers take sound investment decisions and identify potential gaps and growth opportunities. Additionally, the report also identifies and analyses changing dynamics, emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges, opportunities and restraints in Worldwide Digital Magazine Software market. The study includes market share analysis and profiles of players such as AdPlugg, Multipub, Rakuten Aquafadas, Flipsnack, Adobe, Celtra, Submittable, Mirabel Technologies, Ad Sales Genius, Subbly, CWC Software, Aysling, Kotobee, SubHub, Edition Digital, Joomag, SimpleCirc, MadCap Software & Publishing Software Company.
http://energysiren.co.ke/2021/12/18/...gg-multipub-rakuten-aquafadas/
https://rakuten-dx.com/
Japan tech coup for Ubisense
Cambridge technology business Ubisense has clinched a remarkable piece of business in Japan thanks to an alliance with Tokyo-based Rakuten Mobile Inc.
The exclusive reseller pact is designed to leverage Rakuten Mobile to deploy Ubisense IoT products and solutions and drive digital transformation in the Japanese automotive, aerospace, manufacturing and other industries.
The initial focus will be on enterprise customers in Japan.
Ubisense’s advanced real-time location system (RTLS) and SmartSpace software platform have proved the catalyst for the deal.
RTLS utilises a network of sensors and tags to provide precise information about the location, movement and interaction of objects in often challenging environments, such as dynamic production lines and industrial spaces.
This real-time location information gives additional context to the data provided by existing systems, helping digitise processes to improve efficiency, quality and safety.
Under the terms of the agreement, Rakuten Mobile and Ubisense will also jointly collaborate in research and development innovation for RTLS sensor and software products.
Sales and marketing of Ubisense solutions and products in Japan will be managed by Rakuten Communications, a subsidiary of Rakuten Mobile.
https://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/hi-tech/japan-tech-coup-ubisense
Context is King, and Content is Queen
As with previous years, compliance and privacy regulation will continue to shake up the media and performance marketing industry. Advertisers and publisher partners will have to get on board if they haven’t already. The loss of third-party cookies will make hyper-personalised targeting difficult. Marketers will need to return to ‘old school’ tactics like context, a trend we’ll see rise across media and performance marketing.
For affiliate partners and advertisers, this comes in the form of content commerce and influencer marketing. Instagram continues to monetise its offering for influencers, while content and media houses lean on the rise in popularity of ‘shoppable commerce.’ Both content commerce and influencers place marketing messages in a native environment for the consumers, which doesn’t feel invasive and aligns to their interests and likes based on the platform they’re choosing to spend their time.
Similarly, on the media front, the challenge of using personalisation strategies will increase next year. Conversation in the industry has shifted from the loss of cookies and identifiers to the inability to target consumers. Agencies and brands who understand the value of connecting with consumers within the context of a moment will do well in mitigating the challenges caused by the depreciation of cookies. This is where Connected TV (CTV) comes into play.
The Year of CTV – Again!
CTV has earned its place within the marketing and advertising mix, giving brands and agencies the ability to reach consumers who don’t watch traditional or linear television. A CTV strategy complements existing TV or video tactics by increasing reach, particularly with younger audiences.
As mentioned above, the ability to target people based on the context of a moment they’re in will be more significant next year, adding to the value that CTV offers, leading to 2022 once again being the year of CTV. Over recent years suppliers have been establishing their CTV offering and focused on attracting supply and demand. Next year these same players will be looking at how they can monetise their offerings, and we’ll be hearing even more about the power of CTV.
For agencies and brands looking to stay ahead of the curb, they’ll need to partner with suppliers who have the expertise and proven results in driving reach and growing brand awareness via CTV platforms.
https://blog.rakutenadvertising.com/en-uk/...rmance-marketing-trends/
03 DEC 2021
Authorities in Japan reportedly hatched a plan to work with local open RAN advocates to deploy a sizeable trial network using the architecture in 2022, in an attempt to drive use of suppliers based in the country.
Nikkei Asia reported the so-called experimental wide-reaching network would be be based in a central campus close to Toyko and connected to other sites within a 30km radius.
Companies rumoured to be involved include open RAN champions Rakuten Mobile, NTT Docomo and vendor NEC. The project is set to be led by Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Japanese operators NTT Docomo and Rakuten Mobile have been extremely vocal in their support for open RAN, having made moves to use and develop the technology within their own networks, and promote it outside of their home market.
The state-led project would be the country’s latest commitment to help drive open RAN and follows an agreement with the US signed in April to jointly aid development of the architecture. This was part of a drive to widen operator supply chain options in the wake of a US battle to limit the influence of Chinese vendors.
https://www.mobileworldlive.com/featured-content/...022-open-ran-move
Altiostar, now a Rakuten Symphony Company, has been a longtime supporter of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), whose mission is to nurture a community of mobile network operators (MNOs) and technology companies to help build the networks of the future.
One of the ways Altiostar has been involved is by participating in the OpenRAN Outdoor Macro Project Group, specifically working with leading MNOs and other technology providers to confirm compliance of our software to the published outdoor macrocell requirements. We are in good company in this project group working with Tier 1 MNOs from across the globe as well as technology providers spanning radio, RAN software and hardware.
The successful work with the macrocell group has led to the recent addition of Altiostar to the TIP Exchange. Altiostar is listed as a provider of solutions that work in rural, suburban, urban and ultra-urban geographical applications.
Rakuten Symphony also recently provided guidance on our roadmaps in response to the TIP OpenRAN Draft Release 2.0 Detailed Technical Req Document that will be utilized as the baseline set of requirements for OpenRAN project group participants to begin reviewing and provide feedback to inform upcoming releases in the OpenRAN Project group.
TIP Exchange is a great resource for MNOs that want to know what their options are for building an OpenRAN solution that meets industry interoperability requirements. According to TIP: “TIP Exchange distills TIP-qualified offerings so that TIP participants can showcase their products and solutions, and service providers can easily evaluate technology and technology partnerships for flexible and innovative connectivity solutions.”
We believe that ecosystem is one of the critical benefits of OpenRAN, leading to better innovation and more cost-effective solutions. Our participation in TIP is one part of our work to encourage and grow the OpenRAN ecosystem and we’re looking forward to expanding our TIP use cases.
https://www.altiostar.com/...uccess-leads-to-listing-on-tip-exchange/
Rakuten Securities is a part of the broader Rakuten Group and is one of the largest Japanese FX brokers and operates regional businesses, including in Hong Kong, following the Acquisition of one of FXCM’s prior businesses five years ago.
https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/brokers/...-q3-profit-jumps-15/
VIAVI was relied upon to provide benchmarking and validation for plugfest tests and demonstrations at locations including: New Brunswick, USA, hosted by AT&T and Verizon with Rutgers University; Menlo Park, USA, hosted by AT&T and Verizon at the TIP Community Lab with Meta; Berlin, Germany, hosted by Deutsche Telekom; Madrid, Spain, hosted by Telefónica; Gurgaon, India, hosted by Airtel; Tokyo, Japan hosted by Yokosuka Research Park with participation from major service providers including Rakuten Mobile; and Taiwan hosted by Auray OTIC and Security Lab and Chunghwa Telecom.
This year's plugfest demonstrated the rapid evolution of the O-RAN ecosystem with increasing focus on the RAN Intelligent Controller (RIC), which changes the way network resources are managed, bringing artificial intelligence and big data into day-to-day operations. To mitigate the risk involved in introducing this new technology, operators depended upon tools from VIAVI including the TeraVM RIC Test to test the performance of the RIC when presented with a wide range of RAN scenarios, to test the functionality of rApps and xApps, as well as provide the means to generate the data needed to train AI models.
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/...-RAN-Plugfest-37345991/
RAKUTEN SQREEM LAUNCHED NEW AI-BASED FIRST-PARTY DATA AD SOLUTION
Category: October 2021 - IoT in Marketing: Data-driven Marketing & Analytics
online advertising , data analysis
RakutenSQREEMRakuten SQREEM Inc., the joint venture between Singapore-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) Solutions Company SQREEM Technologies and global leader in internet services Rakuten Group, Inc., announced the launch of a new advertising product that offers deeper insights and significantly more targeted media buying.
The new “RMP - SQREEM Ads” combine the behavioral pattern analysis data based on more than 100 million Rakuten members in Japan with SQREEM’s AI behavioral pattern analysis capabilities to provide insights that will enable advertisers to understand at an anonymized individual level what products and services consumers want to buy. With the learnings from this collaboration, SQREEM is now able to help companies understand their behavioral pattern analysis data accumulated by them at scale and speed.
“This is the first of a suite of products we’re planning to launch,” said Ryugen Shimizu, CEO and President of Rakuten SQREEM, Inc. “We’re very excited to see this 12-month project come to fruition and help our clients in Japan create impactful, relevant touchpoints with consumers.”
https://www.mediabuzz.com.sg/...ai-based-first-party-data-ad-solution