Rakuten, Inc. is a technology conglomerate based in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1997 with the launch of the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) marketplace
, the company established itself as a leading online retailer in the country. Through its global subsidiaries, Rakuten engages in a wide range of services related to the digital economy like communication services, financial technology, and video distribution, among others. Building on the core “Rakuten” brand, one of the
Global success story of a virtual shopping mall
Rakuten Ichiba started out as a small-scale virtual marketplace that offered businesses an online platform to sell their products on. With the addition of an auction service to its core platform, the Rakuten brand was introduced to the consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce market through the
Rakuma service. Subsequent acquisitions and joint ventures added extensions to the core brand, like the internet bank
Rakuten Card and the online food retailer Rakuten Seiyu Netsuper, as the strategy revolved around building up an ecosystem resembling a virtual shopping mall.
To connect the horizontally expanding business portfolio and the respective user bases to its core business, cross-platform features like the
Rakuten ID were implemented as fundamental solutions for consumers to enjoy the company’s services with a single registration. Marketing campaigns and a reward point system are promoted as further incentives to bind consumers to the Rakuten ecosystem, contributing to the success of Rakuten Group as an all-round service provider.
The top of the e-commerce market reaching for other segments
Rakuten is a main player within
Japan’s e-commerce landscape, present in the B2B, B2C, and C2C segments. Its main competitors include Yahoo Japan, Amazon, and Mercari in the online retailing and secondhand segments. As mobile channels are growing important for the company’s online sales, Rakuten reaffirmed its commitment of developing its mobile-related services. To become the fourth mobile carrier to further connects its brand ecosystem in Japan, it entered the telecommunications industry as a virtual mobile network operators and subsequently entered the race in building a
fifth-generation mobile network. While the subsidiary Rakuten Mobile released its 5G network with a slight delay in September 2020, it is struggling to grow its mobile subscription share against established service providers, as internet and financial services remain its core segments.
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