Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

from 41,760 in Q3/19 to 52,609 in Q3/20 and Net income increased 38.7% from 4,969 in Q3/19 to 6,893 in Q3/20

Rakuten Securities, Inc. (President: Yuji Kusunoki. Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo) consolidated financial reports for the third quarter ended September 30, 2020 (J-GAAP). The financial reports of Rakuten Securities, Inc. are based on “Uniform Accounting Standards"

Results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2020 (January 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020)
Consolidated Operating Results* (Millions of yen, rounded down)
Operating revenue Net operating revenue Operating income Ordinary Income Net income

Third quarter ended September 30, 2020
52,609 50,829 11,149 11,214 6,893

Third quarter ended September 30, 2019
41,760 39,928 8,604 7,863 4,969

global.rakuten.com/corp/news/press/2020/...orp%20ir%20fintech

Bharti Airtel follows Jio into 5G self-sufficiency
By Wireless Watch Staff

Reliance Jio has made a big play of its plans to develop its 5G architecture inhouse, and now its rival, Bharti Airtel, is taking a similar line. The company says it will work with domestic and international partners to develop technology for 5G, home broadband and IoT networks, and aims to have the equipment manufactured locally, which would conform with the government’s intensifying focus on its ‘Made in India’ initiative. The operator is reported to be working on commercial agreements with its 5G suppliers and several leading lights in the emerging open networks ecosystem are tipped to have a share in the deal, including Altiostar and NEC (both part of the Rakuten Mobile roll-out).

rethinkresearch.biz/articles/...jio-into-5g-self-sufficiency/

Darüber hinaus werden die Rakuten Bank und Rakuten Securities in Gedenken an den Saldo der "Money Bridge" von mehr als 2 Billionen Yen jeweils eine Kampagne veranstalten, um denjenigen"Rakuten Points" und "Cash" zu geben, die neue Konten eröffnet und "Money Bridge" eingerichtet haben. Rakuten Points können für Überweisungsgebühren und Debitkartenzahlungen bei der Rakuten Bank verwendet werden und können ganz oder teilweise für Investment Trusts und inländische Aktien in Rakuten Securities' Point Investments sowie die Anzahl der binären Optionstransaktionen ab Mitte September (geplant) verwendet werden.

Rakuten Bank und Rakuten Securities werden mehr Kunden mit hochwertigen Dienstleistungen versorgen, die in traditionellen Internetbanken und Internet-Wertpapieren nicht verfügbar sind, indem sie Dienste miteinander verbinden, die die Stärken der Rakuten-Gruppe nutzen.

www.rakuten-bank.co.jp/press/2020/200901_2.html

Based on Infovista’s award-winning Planet software, the joint solution runs entirely on Linux and all microservices are delivered as Docker containers offering high availability and scalability and readily integrating into orchestration and automation provided by RCP. These extensive capabilities allow Rakuten Mobile to manage its planning database, automatically generate coverage, interference, throughput and other analysis and, in turn, enable capabilities such as auto-commissioning of sites and automation of other workflows.

Commenting on the development, Rakuten Mobile’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Tareq Amin, said: “Rakuten Mobile’s new 5G network in Japan is a cloud-native mobile network with the flexibility to fulfill the true promise of 5G, supporting important new functionalities, such as network slicing, offering dedicated connectivity for specific customers and ultra-low latency services and beyond, without compromising on reliability.”

“As such, it is critical that our RF design, planning and operational platforms are built using the same concepts and our work with Infovista has delivered an open solution that will allow us to scale and automate many of the critical capabilities we need to deliver on our vision.”

Infovista’s collection of radio planning and design capabilities delivered as containerized microservices is the first solution of its kind to deliver a full suite of 5G planning services as a cloud-native offering and is currently going through trials within Rakuten Mobile ahead of a full roll-out in the course of next year.

www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/...-to-deploy-5G.html

wie heute auch:

https://www.ariva.de/rakuten-aktie/kurs

www.lankabusinessnews.com/...launching-payments-in-chat-bots/

Rakuten Mobile is the ultimate open networks evangelist. It launched 4G mobile services – on virtualised, cloud native infrastructure – in Japan earlier this year as the country’s fourth mobile network operator and added an OpenRAN-based 5G option, on its RCP, into the mix just last month. Its 2,980 yen-per-month (around US$28) 5G plan is doubtless giving Japan’s longer-established operators the jitters, despite its limited reach at present.

Indeed, Rakuten said it had reached 1 million applications for its UN-LIMIT 4G plan by the end of June, less than three months after it launched. Admittedly, that’s a a tiny proportion of NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, and Softbank’s combined 183.5 million mobile customers at the same date, according to Japan’s Telecommunications Carriers Association, but it’s strong growth nonetheless.

“We’re looking forward to offering our growing customer base even more convenient, simple and low-cost services,” said Mikitani, in June.

But outside of Japan, all eyes are on Rakuten’s mission to take its open approach to the rest of the world. Its partnerships with STC and Telefonica, in addition to RCP deals brokered with Equinix and Tech Mahindra in the past few weeks, are just the start of that journey. There’s a lot more to come from Rakuten. Probably soon.

telecoms.com/506901/saudi-telecom-opens-up-to-rakuten/

Why Financial Services Advertisers Should be Focused on the Affiliate Channel
By Matt Lindner | October 26, 2020

Financial services brands are spending more on digital advertising.

eMarketer projects that financial services advertisers will spend $19.62 billion on digital channels overall this year, nearly double the $10.85 billion they spent in 2017.

Affiliate spending is set to grow as well in part because it is a performance-based channel. In financial terms, it’s a smarter investment vehicle than some because you are paying for the results that you ultimately get.

Affiliate generates better return on investment
It’s no secret that digital marketers, regardless of the vertical, are reevaluating their budgets to determine which channels can get them the best return. Affiliate marketing is an optimal practice to maximize return because advertisers pay only when results are achieved. In fact, a 2019 report from the Performance Marketing Association shows that affiliate generates an average ROAS (return on ad spend) of 12:1.

blog.rakutenadvertising.com/insights/...d-focus-on-affiliate/

RADCOM to provide its Automated Assurance Solution, RADCOM ACE, to Rakuten Mobile

TEL AVIV, Israel, Nov. 2, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- RADCOM Ltd (Nasdaq: RDCM), today announced it has entered into a multi-year agreement with Rakuten Mobile, Inc. to provide service assurance for its recently launched Non-Stand Alone (NSA) 5G service and upcoming Stand Alone (SA) 5G service launch, expected in 2021.

As one of the industry's first Stand Alone 5G assurance contracts, RADCOM is excited to provide Rakuten Mobile with critical service assurance for delivering new initiatives in the telecommunications industry and providing customers with next-generation mobile experiences. RADCOM will deploy its cloud-native, containerized assurance solution - RADCOM ACE - and its smart, patented, load-balancing technology to provide Rakuten Mobile with end-to-end 4G and 5G service assurance. While the Rakuten Mobile network is being migrated from its current Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) to a Containerized Network Functions (CNFs) based architecture for 5G Stand Alone, RADCOM's solution is built to ensure Rakuten delivers a superior customer experience to its subscribers.

"RADCOM's automated assurance solution is an important component of the Rakuten Communications Platform, as it allows us to monitor service and subscriber, fulfill analytics on our network performance end-to-end from RAN to Core and IMS, all in a cloud-native virtual environment," said Tareq Amin, chief technology officer of Rakuten Mobile, Inc. "Deploying RADCOM ACE on our network helps us identify service issues in real-time and troubleshoot them, tasks which are essential for smoothly migrating our customers to the new 5G network and onboarding new customers while maintaining the highest quality of service."

www.finanzen.net/nachricht/aktien/...o-rakuten-mobile-9464360

We are delighted to reveal the official winners for the Network Transformation Awards 2020. Recognising networking excellence in 11 categories.

The winners were revealed during the Network Transformation Awards virtual ceremony, on 12 October 2020, alongside the LAYER123 World Congress. To sponsor next year, contact sales@layer123.com

Innovation: New Product Innovation

WINNER: Altiostar - Open vRAN

Altiostar pioneered the first commercial deployment of a fully virtualized Open RAN (Open vRAN) using O-RAN principles. The Altiostar solution currently supports macro, indoor/outdoor small cells and massive MIMO leveraging open interfaces to radio solutions with a virtualized baseband architecture. Altiostar has now taken this concept one step further by implementing a container-based cloud-native micro-service architecture. This new architecture enables advanced cloud-based networks that support new applications and services to be deployed with advanced automation, newer algorithms, and improved QoE while ensuring network slicing and a CUPS architecture can be supported.

congress.layer123.com/event/...a3-ac54-4c08-9fd3-c721f21a9fbd

5G Briefing
Frankfurt
4-5 November 2020

Here is our speaker list so far. Lots more to come.

Anand Prasad
Rakuten Mobile, Inc.

Dr. Anand R. Prasad is a global executive for information and cyber security who has delivered security for 5G, 4G, network function virtualization, WiFi and mobile devices for secure connectivity towards a safer society. Anand has globally propagated the concept of security as the business driver with security being holistic as well as inherent to a system while considering business and architectural implications.

Anand is Founder and CEO of wenovator, an innovations, services and consulting company in the field of information security while he heads Rakuten Mobile’s network and enterprise security. Prior to wenovator, Anand was still heading network and enterprise security for Rakuten Mobile as its Chief Information Security Officer. Anand has over 20 years of experience in the mobile and wireless networking industry with key roles in NEC Corporation, NTT DOCOMO, Genista Corporation, Lucent Technologies and Uniden Corporation. Anand is an innovator with over 50 patents, a recognized keynote speaker (RSA, Global Wireless Summit (GWS), MWC, ICT etc.) and a prolific writer with 6 books & over 50 peer reviewed publications.

Anand was the Chairman of 3GPP SA3 ⁠— the mobile communications security and privacy group ⁠— where, among others, he decided all aspects of 5G security. He was governing council member of TSDSI, is governing body member of GISFI, Fellow of IET, Fellow of IETE and Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

www.google.de/...TMLBHIQ8tMDegQICxA7&biw=1440&bih=757

In August of last year, Rakuten became the headline sponsor of Tokyo Fashion Week and shortly thereafter launched a new Rakuten Fashion strategy that showcased its services as a one-stop shop for fashion brands in search of a comprehensive e-commerce platform. One year later and with over 1200 fashion brand shops on its roster, Rakuten Fashion has launched a new specialty website for luxury brands and designer goods.

Dubbed “Rakuten Fashion Luxury” and launched on October 6, the website offers collections from Marc Jacobs, Kenzo, Fred and Givenchy Beauty, among others, and aims to offer brands a simple approach to e-commerce that is both elegant and modern, while also leveraging the platform to promote new shops, events and products.

rakuten.today/blog/...hion-week-tokyo-2021-spring-summer.html

COVID-19 has Accelerated Growth in the Mobile Payments Market in Japan

Dublin, Nov. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Top Mobile Payment Service Providers in Japan 2020 and their Reaction to the COVID-19 Crisis" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers have increased the use of mobile and contactless payment methods in Japan. The number of consumers making mobile phone payments at least once a week increased in May 2020 compared to the final month of 2019. Moreover, contactless payment with a mobile device was a popular transaction method even before the health crisis hit the country.

Other interesting facts highlighted in this report include the most used QR code mobile payment services in Japan: PayPay, Rakuten Pay and Line Pay. This report also highlights the features introduced by these mobile apps to support their users to facilitate social distancing and touchless payments. For example, Line Pay partnered with Tokyo Gas to make the payment procedure paperless. Moreover, Rakuten Pay partnered with various food and other businesses to introduce contactless and more convenient payments during the pandemic.

www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/...rket-in-Japan.html

Monday 2 November 2020 13:43 CET | News

Rakuten Viber has announced the expansion of the Viber messaging platform into fintech with the launch of the chatbot payments feature.

Viber users will be able to buy goods and services via the platform and make payments with Google Pay or other mobile wallets. The feature will be initially launched in Ukraine, with other markets, including Russia, to follow in 2021.

According to banks.am, Viber’s chatbot payments feature will enable users to purchase products and services from merchants through their authorised chatbots. If the user’s bank supports it, the user needs to add a credit or debit card to their Google Pay account or smartphone wallet, after which the payment option becomes available for any chatbot built on Viber’s API.

To enable this feature, merchants will have to connect to a service provider that supports this type of payment, create a chatbot on Viber, and enable payments on it.

thepaypers.com/mobile-payments/...-payments-feature--1245452#

Global and Japan In-App Purchase Market Size, Status and Forecast 2020-2027

This report studies the In-App Purchase Market with many aspects of the industry like the market size, market status, market trends and forecast, the report also provides brief information of the competitors and the specific growth opportunities with key market drivers. Find the complete In-App Purchase Market analysis segmented by companies, region, type and applications in the report.

The report offers valuable insight into the In-App Purchase market progress and approaches related to the In-App Purchase market with an analysis of each region. The report goes on to talk about the dominant aspects of the market and examine each segment.

Key Players: Netflix Inc, Rakuten Inc., Sony Corporation, Spotify Technology S.A., Tencent Holding Limited, Tinder, Apple Inc, Disney, Google LLC., King Limited.

aerospace-journal.com/space-flight/410411/...holding-limited/

$2 billion in cash

Rakuten Reward:This free browser extension automatically alerts you on deals, applies the best promotional codes and helps you easily earn cash back.

The company has partnered with more than 3,500 brands in apparel, electronics, health and beauty, travel, subscription services and much more. More than 15 million members have received nearly $2 billion in cash back just by shopping with Rakuten.

Featured stores include Macy’s, Net-a-Porter, Asos and a huge range of others.

www.weisradio.com/...oupons-cash-back-reward-points-and-more/

Rakuten Mobile’s disruptive technology

Tokyo, November 4, 2020 – Rakuten Mobile, Inc. today announced its “Zero Declaration,”*1 a commitment aimed at improving convenience and reducing the burden on customers with a range of initiatives that completely redefine expectations for mobile carrier services.

To date, Rakuten Mobile has carried out the following initiatives:

From April 8, 2020
• First year of service (2,980 yen/month): 0 yen
• Domestic calls with Rakuten Link app*3: 0 yen
• Contract cancellation fee: 0 yen

From September 30, 2020
• 5G service fee: 0 yen

October 12, 2020
• SIM exchange fee: 0 yen
• SIM re-issuing fee: 0 yen

November 4, 2020
• MNP transfer fee: 0 yen
• Contract sign-up fee: 0 yen

Zero Declaration: Made possible by Rakuten Mobile’s disruptive technology

Rakuten Mobile has built the world’s first fully virtualized cloud native mobile network*6. By virtualizing all the functions of the network, Rakuten Mobile has been able to dramatically reduce capital investment and operating costs of its network compared to traditional industry standards. The cost reductions made possible through technological innovation allow the operator to pass on savings to customers, challenge the preconceptions of mobile services and offer customers a simple and intuitive plan and services.

Rakuten UN-LIMIT V campaign for new customers: Earn up to 28,000 Rakuten Points in point-back campaign

corp.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/english/news/press/2020/1104_01/

Deutschland, kann man meines Erachtens momentan nur in den USA kaufen:

https://www.ariva.de/rakuten-aktie/kurs

Excellent Rakuten Mobile Network Experience backed by Altiostar solutions

At its Q2 2020 Earnings virtual event, Rakuten Mobile took an opportunity to share the performance results of its four-month-old Altiostar-based Open RAN 4G network.

One of the data points presented came from Opensignal, the global standard for understanding the true state of the world’s mobile networks based on measurements of real user experience. Their analyst team has recently published a report detailing one of the first tests of 4G subscriber throughput on the Rakuten mobile network in comparison to other nationwide 4G operators in Japan, demonstrating very promising results – so promising that Rakuten Mobile included the results in the their earnings report.

According to Opensignal, when users are on the 4G network, they are experiencing very good download speeds with the Rakuten network providing great network availability and plenty of bandwidth for applications such as online gaming, video and voice- In terms of 4G upload speeds, Rakuten is actually outperforming other operators and this is in part due to the superior performance of the open vRAN solution they are using from Altiostar, including patented algorithms which allow operators to realize gains in performance. In addition, customers such as Rakuten benefit from Altiostar’s focus on R&D, state of the art tools and RF measurement equipment, and implementation methodology, which has been field-tested and fine-tuned to allow for improved network performance.
These performance numbers were backed up by a separate blog post from Tutela in October 2020, which reports performance based on crowdsourced data. Some of the conclusions of that report include:

• Rakuten users experienced higher upload speeds and better latency compared to some other operators, which may prove to be important elements for Rakuten’s success. With the world being in a lockdown, these are critical factors for some important use-cases like gaming and uploading content on social media platforms.

• The high-quality user experience provided by Rakuten’s own network, and its rate of adoption by users, suggests that so far, the O-RAN deployment is working well.

www.altiostar.com/rakuten-mobile-and-its-network-experience/

Rakuten launches unique, member-centric Ecosystem in the UK: Club Rakuten

Club Rakuten will bring together Rakuten’s existing U.K. brands (Rakuten TV, Rakuten Kobo and Rakuten Viber) with more than 250 partnerships across retail and experiences with global brands like Booking.com, Lego and ASOS to create a robust, customer-centric membership rewards program unlike any other in Europe.

This new proposition allows us to bring our group services to members in a more relevant and dynamic way. Members can quickly and easily earn points through everyday shopping in multiple categories, including household purchases, clothing, books and movies. They can then redeem their points in a wide variety of ways including gift cards to help them shop smartly and reduce household spend. They can use their points to create “feel good” moments, such as watching the latest blockbuster release at home with their families and friends on Rakuten TV, or to donate to one of 20,000 charities.

Inspired by Rakuten’s remarkably popular points program in Japan, which has rewarded more than 2 trillion points (a value of approx. 18.8 billion USD), Club Rakuten will empower U.K. members like never before.

Of course we’re also committed to adding real value to our members’ lives beyond the transactional and financial. Club Rakuten members will benefit from a wide range of perks including money-can’t-buy offers, prize draws and special discounts. Members can get VIP treatment including priority access and free upgrades at events with Fever, 20 percent off FC Barcelona’s Culer’s Premium Membership and discounts on a wide range of movies with Rakuten TV, as well as book purchases with Kobo.

rakuten.today/blog/club-rakuten-launch-uk.html

Rakuten Bank, Ltd. (Hauptsitz: Minato-ku, Tokio, Präsident: Hiroyuki Nagai, "Rakuten Bank") wurde mit dem Porter Prize 2020 (organisiert von der Hitotsubashi Business School, Department of International Corporate Strategy) ausgezeichnet, um Unternehmen und Unternehmen zu ehren, die hervorragende einzigartige Strategien umgesetzt haben.

Über den Porter Prize: Der Porter Prize wurde 2001 ins Leben gerufen und ist in diesem Jahr zum 20. Mal. Jedes Jahr vergeben wir (ihn an) Unternehmen, die einzigartige und überlegene Strategien umsetzen und eine hohe Profitabilität erzielen und aufrechterhalten. Der Name des Preises stammt von Professor Michael E. Porter von der Harvard University, einem Meister der Wettbewerbsstrategietheorie.

Porter Award Website: Rakuten Bank ist eine Internet-Bank ohne persönliche Geschäfte oder eigene Geldautomaten, und hat die größte Anzahl von Konten in Japan mit 8,68 Millionen Konten (Stand Ende März 2020), und wurde für die Bereitstellung einer breiten Palette von Produkten wie Asset-Management-Tools wie gewöhnlich, festverzinsliche, Fremdwährungseinlagen, Überweisungen mit Überweisungen, Abhebungen, und Sofortnachrichten sowie Hypotheken und Kartenkredite bewertet.

www.rakuten-bank.co.jp/press/2020/201106.html

Rakuten Mobile Becomes First Japanese Operator to Allow Online Identity Verification

Rakuten Mobile this week announced that it will introduce the “AI Kantan Honnin Kakunin” (AI Easy ID Verification) eKYC (electronic Know Your Customer) service for online contracts for its mobile carrier service on November 9, 2020.

Through the eKYC service, customers are able to verify their identity with their smartphone by taking a photo of their driver’s license and their face. There are also plans to add an IC chip reader function to accept applications made with My Number Cards as well. Rakuten Mobile said it is the first mobile network operator (MNO) in Japan to provide an eKYC system for mobile carrier service contracts.

www.thefastmode.com/...-to-allow-online-identity-verification

erwartet.

LINE and Rakuten lead the way as top two risers in BrandZ Japan's Top 50 Most Valuable Brands 2021

The pandemic has also accelerated Japan's move to digital. Despite being an advanced technological market, rates of e-commerce have previously been low, but that is now changing and companies are investing heavily. Japan's leading online retailer Rakuten (No. 23, $2.5 billion brand value) was one of the biggest beneficiaries, with its brand value up 22%).

www.finanzen.net/nachricht/aktien/...able-brands-2021-9476887