Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket
April 18, 2024
https://payment.rakuten.co.jp/news/2024041800/
April 18, 2024
https://payment.rakuten.co.jp/news/2024041800/
And Rakuten Edy will follow.
Auch ich hatte hier mit einem größeren Anstieg gerechnet, aber die Zahl ist trotzdem okay - und einem weiteren Anstieg der User-Zahlen, der Rakuten Mobile in die Gewinnzone führt, steht nach meiner Einschätzung kaum etwas im Wege.
By Eden Ezion
APRIL 11, 2024
https://www.viber.com/en/blog/2024-04-11/68753/
Da ich die Schreiber bei Bloomberg nicht für unfähig halte, sehe ich in derartigen Behauptungen gezielte bezahlte Manipulation. Denn diese sicher nicht unfähgien Schreiber wissen genau, wie es auch Rakuten in seiner Berichterstattung dargelegt hat, die diese Schreiber wohl auch gelesen haben, dass die Zinsbelastung für Rakuten durch Termingeschäfte, was die Zinsen und vor allem die Rückzahlung anbetriftt, die Zinsbelastung auf eine 6 vor dem Komma drücken.
Dass die Währung, deren Zinsniveau niedriger ist als in einem anderen Währungsraum, was die Terminkurse einen Report aufweisen, müsste eigentlich Schreibern auf Bloomberg bekannt sein.
March 6, 2024
https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...ounced-during-mwc-barcelona-2024
April 1, 2024
Mobile operators can’t transform the business of telecom simply by offering faster speeds and new services.
The magic comes from making significant advancements in areas like network site planning, building and maintenance, and careful management of the field force executing rollout. Much like how Amazon’s online shopping business is about industrialized logistics and supply, telecom’s business is the same but promising customers connectivity rather than shopping.
1&1 in Germany knows this well. The greenfield operator has just launched its fully virtualized 5G network, successfully achieving hardware and software industrialization, establishing a common data set and implementing AI-driven automation. With dozens of vendors, systems integrators and partners all contributing to this ambitious project, it is no small feat to have established an advanced network operation powered by a common data set.
This is a milestone every telco will need to reach, whether existing or greenfield.
As Igal Elbaz, SVP, Network CTO, AT&T, commented recently, “We keep talking about open and cloud RAN, the excitement of the architecture – but real life is building the network. For a network of our size, nationwide across north America, that takes a lot of effort and planning.”
At Mobile World Congress Barcelona, Network Media Group hosted a panel with some of 1&1’s key technology providers to explore how the operator has been able to streamline one of telecom’s most ambitious network rollouts and what the rest of the industry can learn from the success achieved to date. Joining me were Mory Lin, VP of IoT/Embedded and Edge Computing at Supermicro and Caroline Chan, VP of the Network and Edge Group at Intel.
Telecom Reinvented
The conversation anchored on the reinvention happening within telecom and the evolution that has occurred since Rakuten Mobile built the industry’s first fully virtualized network in Japan. 1&1 is benefiting from Rakuten’s years of experience operating this network, along with the latest advancements in technologies, network designs and strategies.
Even the language has changed. I contrasted the difference between how networks are described today versus previous generations. Builders of 2G, 3G or even 4G networks would refer to points of presence using terms like cell sites, base stations and mobile switching centers. At 1&1 network, these network locations are now central data centers connecting to regional data centers connecting to edge data centers. This has obsoleted much of the vernacular that has been so common within telecom going back decades.
It is Germany’s fourth mobile network and the first fully software driven network in all of Europe.
How did 1&1 deploy its network so quickly? By completely embracing industrialization of the network. Building a complex network involves a slate of unsexy processes that must be repeated at tens to hundreds to thousands of sites. Within each site are just as many components, all managed and deployed by the same number of people working in parallel.
1&1’s network is powered by automation enabled by a common data set available across all systems throughout the network.
Industrialization at this scale requires a new hardware supply chain. In the 1&1 network, all locations can choose from a hardware template of Intel-powered Supermicro servers based on the size of the site and functionality deployed there.
Similarly, a standardized software supply chain based on cloud-native microservices was implemented. This software can be remotely deployed, maintained and managed throughout its lifecycle.
AI’s Role in the Network
The panel discussed how AI can improve OSS/BSS functionality and flexibility given the quantity and availability of telemetry and other data that powers proper network operation. AI at the edge is an important aspect of this because it benefits from lower latency for faster decisions. The importance of edge AI led one presenter to suggest it will be running the network within a year. The common data set provides the data foundation for AI to have network-wide impacts on managing the network.
Truth in AI is important because AI is only as good as the truth (i.e., data) it’s given. In the real world, when people have different opinions, they can come to different conclusions. That doesn’t work with AI because it is not acceptable for a machine to have an opinion on data that is incorrect.
This brought the conversation back to the importance of extending network industrialization to the entire software and data supply chain.
Despite its “greenfield” label, 1&1 stands as an example of telecom reinvented that existing operators can learn from as they plot strategies of their own.
Click here to watch the entire 20-minute discussion featuring more insights on the benefits of industrialization and 1&1’s journey to get there.
https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...w-approach-to-telecom-operations
March 29, 2024
In this Rakuten Booth presentation from Mobile World Congress 2024, Petrit Nahi, Senior Technical Advisor, CTO Office, Rakuten Mobile and Madhukiran Medithe, Head of Data Science, demonstrate how Rakuten’s intelligent algorithms can effectively manage RAN efficiency and reduce network power consumption, resulting in observed energy savings of nearly 25%.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdsEjVrLYI8
April 19, 2024
Chadie Ghadie, Director of Global Business Development for Edge Computing at Lenovo, talks about the benefits of Lenovo hardware with Rakuten Symphony cloud software for telco customers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GINXLXYlu_c
62 Aufrufe 19.04.2024
Yasufumi Hirai, Chief of Staff to the CEO, Group Executive Vice President, Special Project Division, discusses Rakuten’s decision to launch its new company-wide AI-nization initiative, its implications for the telecom industry and how AI can empower a brighter future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgvNLM6gY_0
April 01, 2024
In this session, we hear from Anshul Bhatt, Chief Product Officer at Rakuten Symphony, Professor Tommaso Melodia, Director, Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things, Northeastern University and Madhukiran Medithe, Head of Data Science, Rakuten Mobile on the partnership between Rakuten and zTouch as they discuss their overall vision for OSS 2.0 and their collaboration on AI Powered RIC apps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YBn-HwCWDg
Non GAAP Operating Income improved 69.0 billion JPY from negative 72.6 billion JPY in Q4/22 to only negative 3.6 billion JPY in Q4/23.
Internet Service Segment Improvement was 18.9 billion JPY
Fintech Segment Improvement was 13.2 billion JPY
Mobile Segment Improvement was 36.6 billion JPY
Consolidated Adjustment Changes was 0.4 billion JPY
Breakeven in sight for Open Ran operator in long campaign against established carriers NTT Docomo, KDDI and Softbank
By SCOTT FOSTER MARCH 30, 2024
Rakuten Mobile, Japan’s upstart mobile telecom network operator, sees light at the end of the financial tunnel as subscriber growth heads toward breakeven on an operating cash flow basis in 2024.
Breakeven will be a milestone for the Open RAN (Radio Access Network) standard that allows for various companies to supply different parts of a telecommunications network.
Open RAN gives telecom service providers more flexibility and independence from large suppliers of complete proprietary systems such as China’s Huawei, Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia, and smaller national champions like South Korea’s Samsung and Japan’s NEC and Fujitsu.
https://asiatimes.com/2024/03/...n-mobile-making-gains-with-open-ran/
2 days ago
Japan’s open-source AI community is taking a major leap forward, thanks to the groundbreaking efforts of Rakuten’s AI engineers and scientists.
Last week, Rakuten’s AI team unveiled a suite of large language models (LLMs) with exceptional performance in Japanese. Seven billion parameter models are the result of training on top of Mistral-7B, another open-source model with high performance in English.
The Rakuten team adapted it to improve performance in Japanese while retaining English performance, and has now released their work for the open source community to use.
Led by Rakuten Group Chief Data Officer Ting Cai and his team of experts in AI, a total of three models have been released, all available under a commercial license.
One is the foundation model – something that has the knowledge but hasn’t been fine-tuned in any way and can be adapted to serve a wide range of purposes, while the other models perform more specific tasks. The second is the instruct model, which users can prompt to generate specific outputs, and the third is the chat model, which is finetuned on conversational data to act as a chatbot.
https://rakuten.today/blog/...ops-performance-charts-in-japanese.html
https://flixpatrol.com/top10/rakuten-tv/world/2024-04-17/
APRIL 11, 2024
We commit to harnessing the talents and ingenuity of our citizens to seize cutting-edge technological opportunities. The United States, subject to Congressional notification, and Japan, with support from Japanese industry, intend to provide at least $8 million for Open Radio Access Network (RAN) field trials and the Asia Open RAN Academy based in Manila, to enable future commercial deployment and an open, interoperable, secure, reliable, and trusted information communications technology ecosystem in the Philippines. This builds on prior U.S. and Japanese investment of over $9 million for these projects in the Philippines. The government of Japan is also seriously considering further investments for the potential commercial deployment of Open RAN technology in the Philippines, including from the Global South Future-Oriented Co-Creation Project. The United States and Japan welcome the Philippines’ plan to pilot Open RAN in its national broadband program and free Wi-Fi project. The United States and Japan commend the Philippines’ commitment to develop a national Open RAN policy framework, reaffirming the Philippines’ endorsement of open, interoperable, and trusted architectures. This year, our three countries look forward to holding the first trilateral Cyber and Digital Dialogue to explore additional cooperation opportunities.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/...es-and-the-united-states/
19th April 2024
Global hospitality leader, Accor, today announced a new partnership with Rakuten Group, Inc., a global technology leader
As part of the partnership, members of Accor’s lifestyle loyalty programme, ALL - Accor Live Limitless, can convert their ALL Reward points into Rakuten Points from June 2024, at 2,000 ALL Reward points for 1,600 Rakuten Points. From September 2024, Rakuten members can convert their Rakuten Points into ALL Reward points, at 3,200 Rakuten Points for 1,000 ALL Reward points.
Accor and Rakuten signed a memorandum of understanding for a comprehensive partnership in January 2023, with the upcoming points exchange agreement as its first accomplishment. The parties continue to explore initiatives to further strengthen its partnership, including a collaboration with Rakuten Travel, a leading online travel agency serving over 40,000 hotels and ryokans in Japan.
https://press.accor.com/...-rakuten-group-to-convert-rewards/?lang=en
1 day ago
The newly announced Kobo Libra Colour and Kobo Clara Colour blend the vibrancy of life and literature in two eye-catching models.
The devices will be available in stores and online in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Turkey as of April 30, 2024.
https://rakuten.today/blog/...-unveils-first-ever-color-ereaders.html
All sectors of Rakuten delivered contributions to the increase: Internet Service Improvement was 18.9 billion JPY, Fintech Improvement was 13.2 billion JPY, Mobile Improvement was 36.6 billion JPY, Adjustment Changes was 0.4 billion JPY.
By Rahul Atri
President, OSS Business Unit Rakuten Symphony
April 19, 2024
Rakuten Symphony’s OSS President Rahul Atri shares his vision for how artificial intelligence can drastically advance the way mobile networks are designed, deployed, operated and monetized - all through a system’s learned ability to understand a user’s intentions. He believes successful AI use is not only a technological challenge, but also one of ROI and sustainability.
Networks of the future will be fully automated and enabled by AI - they won’t need people to figure out things that are manually integrated. In the very near future, network operations teams will collaborate with AI tools to efficiently share their intent and deliver positive business outcomes. This is the next step in the evolution of data – from insight-driven actions to AI-driven actions.
Let’s think about how we solve problems as humans. We define a problem with a view to achieving an outcome - this is our intent. The experience we have acquired over the years in a specific domain is our context, and the outcome is the results we deliver. Let’s translate this to an MNO’s network operations - your AI companion should be able to offer intent and context-aware suggestions that can help to generate successful outcomes.
When Rakuten started investing in AI, it was always a Group-wide initiative, not just within Rakuten Mobile and Rakuten Symphony. All of Rakuten’s 70+ companies are thinking of AI as a service delivery platform. That approach comes from the company’s leadership - that in itself helps to create a DNA of AI use and avoids the bureaucracy it could otherwise bring. To echo the words of Rakuten Group Chief Data Officer Ting Cai, AI needs to be able to take our services to the “next level”.
An AI system needs to understand each individual user and their specific intent with regard to their domain or workstreams - it needs to understand that the user is asking a certain question and the logic behind why they asked it. Everyone, from sales teams, to RAN engineers and even the CEO, has their own specific objectives in terms of what is needed for them to be successful and effective. How can we find a way to make sure all of their varied - and not to mention deeply complex - goals are met?
Here’s how Rakuten Symphony plans to reach that level of sophistication.
Intent and context hold the key
We believe that the user’s intent must be understood by an AI system – as an organization, we are now investing a lot of energy and resources on the classification of intent and contextualization in order to find the most efficient solution to the problem. That’s across a number of scenarios - whether it is an NLP to SQL query, semantic search, triggering a workflow or generating a domain-specific prompt for large language models (LLM).
Every time an individual user speaks to the tool, that tool needs to become more intelligent and grow its understanding about the user and their domain and context. We want the AI to do those things for you so that you can do more meaningful work and do it more efficiently. Rakuten Symphony has already showcased working versions of this at MWC Barcelona 2024 - using live Rakuten Mobile data - and we are progressing rapidly.
AI - tell me how I should operate my network
Almost all types of dashboards and reports are traditionally very static. Whichever tools operators currently use, static dashboards can provide them with a certain level of insight, but that does not necessarily address the specific initial intent of the user that needed the answers.
What needs to happen is for LLMs to speak to your database and platforms in order to become more domain-specific - to drill down into the specifics of what the user needs. It means understanding context-related things such as who is requesting answers - a customer care agent, a radio frequency engineer or an executive. That requires the training of the data - so it knows that a senior executive is asking how well the 5G network is performing compared to the 4G network. The executive doesn’t need data on specific KPIs, just the ARPU on the 5G network compared to the 4G network.
In the near-term, I believe that we will all become AI trainers. Radio engineers will become ‘radio AI engineers’ - they will train AI models with their intent, their context, and they will teach the AI to solve the problem in their own specific way. In the long-term, we will all become domain-independent. We will even be able to exchange neural graphs – our own individual intents, contexts, knowledge and experience - so that we can share whatever knowledge we have acquired over the years.
From RF engineer to CEO – AI in network ops
Let’s look at one example. Today, fine tuning or customizing a radio resource scheduler is a real headache for radio frequency (RF) engineers and requires complex coding and expertise. But what happens if the network scheduler can be tuned via an AI tool and someone can convey their intent to a radio site in a football stadium - where people are constantly uploading Instagram videos - to tune itself for heavy uplink traffic? The scheduler can pre-emptively adapt to this request. You don't have to be an RF engineer to do this.
A simpler example is when a cloud engineer needs to define which 10 things to monitor every day across the network’s operations to know that their cloud is healthy. The AI should be able to decide what those things are and provide relevant and accurate updates on their status. A RAN engineer should be able to say that they can scan their network and see which KPIs are underperforming - and if that’s the case, which action they should take; the tool needs to be intent-aware.
Let’s move on to someone at C-level - the most important day-to-day decision makers in an MNO. They might want to know how much they should invest in 5G infrastructure so that they can achieve a certain level of profit at a certain point in the future. That begs a lot of questions: in which city should they invest in building sites? What benefits and consequences would that decision bring? The AI should be able to tell the CXO that you should only launch, let's say, 1,000 sites and focus on one particular city because 4G sites are 80% loaded there, 80% of users already have a 5G handset, and your competitors already have a distinct advantage with 5G coverage.
The AI might tell the CXO that if they only want to spend a certain amount on infrastructure, and with a specific timeframe in mind, this area probably isn’t the best place to launch 5G. That’s just one aspect. Next, we can ask how the AI thinks the CXO or sales team should price the network’s plans. A tool might tell you that you should launch a monthly 4G plan at $10, for example, with 5G at $12, but for the first six months you should offer it for free so that people can get used to the service.
These are just some examples of how we design the AI platform its capabilities, so that we can not only build technology but solve use cases and measure ROI of the AI.
Rakuten Symphony is committed to end results, delivering the use cases in production and solving the real customer problems. We specialize in turning intent into actions and then into assurance - we always believe that every use case gap is a product or a feature in the making.
https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...deliver-smarter-telecom-outcomes
April 25, 2024
Rakuten Group, Inc. (hereinafter the “Company”), as announced on January 25, 2024, in “Announcement Regarding the Issuance of USD Denominated Senior Notes and Purchases of USD Denominated Senior Notes and JPY Denominated Senior Bonds”, has completed the purchase and cancellation of certain of its JPY denominated senior bonds scheduled to mature in and after 2024 (hereinafter the "Purchase"). The details are as follows.
1. Background of the Purchase
The Purchase was conducted with the aim of smoothing out the Company’s bond redemption schedule. The Company used cash on hand and proceeds from the February 2024 issuance of USD denominated senior notes, less the amount used for the February 2024 offers to repurchase USD denominated senior notes due 2024 for cash consideration, as the source of funds for the Purchase.
2. Outline of the Purchase
Target Bonds: Rakuten Group, Inc. 15th Unsecured Bonds (with inter-bond pari passu clause)
Total issue amount: JPY 75 billion
Issue date: December 2, 2021
Maturity date: December 2, 2024
Total face value of the Purchase: JPY 55.8 billion
Remaining amount: JPY 19.2 billion
https://global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2024/0425_01.html
April 18, 2024
JD Sports & Rakuten Advertising | Leveraging Sneakerhead Community to Boost Authenticity
For over five years, JD Sports and Rakuten Advertising have prioritised affiliate marketing to foster brand awareness and equity. This year, their focus was on engaging sneakerheads authentically, catering to their passion for athletic footwear. Leveraging full-funnel partnership initiatives, they amplified JD Sports' identity and ON Running sub-brand, targeting trend-leading segments like Gen Z and diverse communities.
As a challenger brand in the US market, they differentiated themselves by emphasising inclusivity and authenticity. Collaborating with underrepresented creators and integrating with leading BNPL partners, Rakuten enriched brand experiences and drove significant YoY incremental sales growth. Special events, UGC development, and regional retail activations further strengthened JD Sports’ brand presence and community engagement.
https://hellopartner.com/2024/04/18/uspa-winner-template-copy/