With Rakuten’s sponsorship of iconic football club FC Barcelona and a strategic brand integration kicking off last year, recognition of the Rakuten name in Europe is growing fast. To get a sense of the extent of Rakuten’s commitment to the region – as well as the vision for the future – Rakuten.Today caught up with Toby Otsuka, CEO of Rakuten in Europe.
“Europe has always been a core market for Rakuten. We’ve been active in the region for nearly a decade,” explains Toby Otsuka, CEO of Rakuten Europe.
Can you give us an overview of Rakuten’s current position in Europe?
Europe has always been a core market for Rakuten. We’ve been active in the region for nearly a decade. More than 15 Rakuten companies are based here, including PriceMinister-Rakuten, Rakuten.de, Rakuten TV, Rakuten Viber and Rakuten Marketing – and some of our biggest investments, including Glovo, Cabify and Currency Cloud, have been made in Europe.
We have a long history – but it’s only since we started to unify our brands around the Rakuten name, and launched our partnership with FC Barcelona last year, that people really started to recognize the extent of our presence and our commitment to the region.
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