Rakuten wesentlich besser als Rocket

Even so, while many telecom operators continue to market network quality and coverage improvements, and is facing a new technology upgrade cycle with 6G,  Hollingworth suggested that connectivity alone is becoming an increasingly weak basis for customer differentiation.
“Our recommendation is that telcos really need to start looking at how they can promise customers something different from base connectivity and ‘best 5G ever’, which they pay a huge amount of money promoting,” he said.

Instead, he advocated building broader customer propositions through partnerships with companies in adjacent industries.

To illustrate the concept, he pointed to the airline industry, where loyalty ecosystems have evolved into powerful business platforms. Airlines generate significant value by connecting customers with hotels, car rental companies and credit card providers, all of whom are willing to pre-pay for access to airline customer relationships. If you want to understand much more about how loyalty schemes work, and the economics involved, then do read the report.

“The airline industry is interesting because the actual mechanisms are so transparent in terms of how this works,” he said. “It’s so obvious how lucrative it is to have relationships and cross-selling.”
The lesson for telecom operators is not necessarily to build airline-style loyalty programs, but to create economic partnerships that lower customer acquisition costs for participating businesses while increasing customer retention.

the-mobile-network.com/2026/06/...-end-their-identity-crisis/

For example: After my estimates Rakuten Mobile had crossed 10.5 million subscribers, but Rakuten had not annouced this developement.  But Rakuten had not ever announced, that they will use the bigger step of one million subscribers in the future.

Parts of this overlining “Rakuten Innovation - The latest insights and news about Rakuten innovation and entrepreneurship” was not refreshed since February – but there existing additional 36 news since February.

Mainstream Media launches AKIBA ANIME Channel on Rakuten TV

June 22, 2026 09.00 Europe/London By Jörn Krieger

Mainstream Media has launched its new FAST Channel AKIBA ANIME on Rakuten TV, expanding the German media company’s streaming portfolio with a 24 hour line up of anime classics and contemporary hit series.

The channel, developed in partnership with German publisher peppermint anime, went live on 16 June 2026 and is available free of charge across Rakuten TV’s European footprint.
Anime has a long cultural history in Germany, beginning in the 1970s with Japanese produced children’s series such as Biene Maja and Heidi, which became formative television experiences for entire generations. Later decades brought titles that achieved cult status, including Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Pokémon and One Piece. Today the genre attracts millions of viewers worldwide, driven by emotional storytelling, complex characters and a narrative style shaped by Japanese culture and philosophy.

www.broadbandtvnews.com/2026/06/22/...ba-anime-on-rakuten-tv/

for about $ 500 million and buy back from the amount about 100 million own shares, because this is a better investment than other, Rakuten is doing.

Acorns provides a simple online investing app for people who want an easy way to invest without spending much time. Acorns has about $13.39 billion in assets under management and close to 14 million+ users.

www.brokerage-review.com/investing-firm/...nt/acorns-aum.aspx

Here is the list of institutional investors of Acorns:
         •§TPG, located in Fort Worth (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jan 25, 2019 in its Series E round.
         •§BlackRock, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jan 25, 2019 in its Series E round.
         •§Bain Capital Ventures, located in Boston (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jul 20, 2017 in its Series D round.
         •§Galaxy, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Mar 09, 2022 in its Series F round.
         •§35V, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Mar 09, 2022 in its Series F round.
         •§Torch Capital, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Mar 09, 2022 in its Series F round.
         •§Greycroft, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Apr 02, 2015 in its Series C round.
         •§Owl Rock Capital, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Mar 09, 2022 in its Series F round.
         •§Senator Investment Group, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Mar 09, 2022 in its Series F round.
         •§Industry Ventures, located in San Francisco (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Mar 09, 2022 in its Series F round.
         •§Headline, located in San Francisco (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Apr 02, 2015 in its Series C round.
         •§jennifer 20lopez, located in Los Angeles (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Aug 20, 2019 in its Angel round.
         •§Comcast Ventures, located in San Francisco (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jan 25, 2019 in its Series E round.
         •§NBCUniversal, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jan 25, 2019 in its Series E round.
         •§MSD Capital, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jan 25, 2019 in its Series E round.
         •§The Rise Fund, located in San Francisco (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jan 12, 2018 in its Series D round.
         •§Bain Capital, located in Boston (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jan 25, 2019 in its Series E round.
         •§PayPal, located in United States, made their first investment in Acorns on Mar 21, 2016 in its Series D round.
         •§Nyca Partners, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Jul 20, 2017 in its Series D round.
         •§Sound Ventures, made their first investment in Acorns on Jul 20, 2017 in its Series D round.
         •§Capital Group, located in Amsterdam (Netherlands), made their first investment in Acorns on Jul 20, 2017 in its Series D round.
         •§Point72 Ventures, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Nov 22, 2016 in its Series D round.
         •§Rakuten Capital, located in Setagaya City (Japan), made their first investment in Acorns on Mar 21, 2016 in its Series D round.
         •§Garland Capital Group, located in Chicago (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Apr 02, 2015 in its Series C round.
         •§MATH Venture Partners, located in Chicago (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Apr 02, 2015 in its Series C round.
         •§Sound Ventures, located in United States, made their first investment in Acorns on Apr 02, 2015 in its Series C round.
         •§Jacobs Asset Management, located in New York City (United States), made their first investment in Acorns on Feb 28, 2014 in its Series B round.

tracxn.com/d/companies/acorns/...ding-and-investors#investors

imaraiv.com/investments-von-rakuten-capital/

Dear Shareholders: I would like to begin by thanking all our shareholders for their continued support. Looking back on fiscal 2025, the support of our customers propelled us past several major milestones, as the number of deposit accounts passed the 18 million mark in March 2026, and our non-consolidated balance of deposits exceeded 13 trillion yen as of December 31, 2025. This has enabled us to cement our status as the digital bank with the greatest number of accounts and the largest deposit balance in Japan. We also achieved consolidated ordinary income of 255.5 billion yen (up 38% year on year) and consolidated ordinary profit of 103.0 billion yen (up 44% year on year), both our highest ever. These results were due to the expansion of our business scale, which also boosted operational efficiency, in addition to substantial growth in net interest income. Since taking on the role of steering management in fiscal 2025, I have focused on revitalizing the organization and strengthening our marketing functions. In an increasingly competitive financial environment, we consistently strive to be the Safe, Secure, and Most Convenient Bank. By combining the Rakuten Group’s strong customer base with technology, we are committed to continuously providing both our retail and corporate customers with the highest level of digital banking services. We are confident that this is the value of our existence as a leading FinTech Company. At Rakuten Bank, we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of our establishment this July, marking a significant milestone. Since our founding in 2001, we have continually strived to offer new financial services as a digital bank. Moving forward, as a member of the Rakuten Group, we aim for deep collaboration with the Rakuten Ecosystem to advance our business, contributing to the realization of a prosperous future from a position integral to our customers’ lives. Through the new stage in our history, we will continue to expand our business, enhance performance, and maximize corporate value to contribute to our shareholders as a leading FinTech Company. All of us at Rakuten Bank will work together for a better future by helping social development through financial services, and we look forward to your continued understanding and support.

June 2026 Tomotaka Torin, President and CEO

www.rakuten-bank.co.jp/corp/english/pdf/meeting-260528.pdf

AST SpaceMobile-Aktie: Der gefährlichste Wettbewerber von SpaceX?

Hochspannung garantiert

Peter Wolf-Karnitschnig
17.06.26

Die AST SpaceMobile-Aktie befindet sich im Tiefflug. Nachdem der Kurs des Satellitenbetreibers Ende Mai auf ein Allzeithoch schoss, ging es innerhalb von nur drei Wochen um fast -40% bergab. Macht SpaceX AST nun den Garaus oder ist es es genau andersrum und AST der gefährlichste Wettbewerber von SpaceX?

www.sharedeals.de/...-gefaehrlichste-wettbewerber-von-spacex/

www.rakuten-bank.co.jp/corp/english/...l-id=ir_monthly_202605

That is why programmability matters. If the network cannot be exposed, orchestrated and adjusted through software, AI remains observational rather than operational. In that context, the service management and orchestration (SMO) layer becomes more than a technical component. It becomes the control point that allows intelligence to translate into execution.

The real prerequisite is a usable data foundation

The panel also reinforced a harder truth: autonomous operations will not be built on models alone. They will be built on data environments that are broad enough, accessible enough and structured enough to support continuous learning and intervention.

Dr. Gerszberg pointed to a familiar telecom constraint: many OSS environments still reflect architectures in which applications own their own data. That limits visibility and weakens the foundation AI depends on. Bringing network and IT data together across domains is not a side project. It is the prerequisite for meaningful autonomy.

Murthy described Rakuten Symphony’s OSS approach in similar terms, with the data layer as the foundation for everything above it. “Once data from legacy and newer network environments can be ingested in a consistent way, orchestration, assurance and remediation become easier to operationalize and AI becomes embedded in the system rather than added onto it.”

Agentic OSS changes the model

One of the more important ideas in the session was that OSS is moving beyond dashboards and copilots toward agents.

Murthy described conversational AI as the entry point. A useful interface for querying systems, surfacing insights and guiding human decisions. But the more consequential shift is toward agentic systems that can execute tasks, manage subprocesses and coordinate actions with human oversight.
That is the logic behind Agent Studio, Rakuten Symphony’s framework for building agents on top of OSS products and data environments. The significance is not just technical. It signals a different operating model, one in which autonomy is introduced in layers, with modular functions, security guardrails and lifecycle management built in from the outset.

The blockers are now engineering and trust

The panel made clear that the path forward is not frictionless.

Murthy pointed to the cost and complexity of large-scale AI deployments, particularly in environments where control and repeatability matter. More focused models, machine learning and modular architectures might prove more practical than applying large language models indiscriminately.
“Network operations data is highly time-sensitive and often ephemeral, making it poorly suited to many general-purpose AI environments. And as autonomous systems multiply, operators will also face a new coordination problem, how agents resolve conflicts, negotiate priorities and act without creating instability.” - Dr. Gerszberg, Head of Group Future Networks, Axiata Group.

The decisive issue may be organizational as outlined by Dr. Wu. “AI-powered OSS will only scale if operations teams trust it. That means change management, explainability and a clear understanding of what the system is doing and why. In network operations, trust cannot be assumed. It has to be engineered as carefully as the platform itself.”

AI-powered OSS is the future

What emerged from the discussion was a more grounded view of autonomy. The breakthrough will not come from AI alone, nor from a single product layer. It will come from aligning data, programmability, agent frameworks and human confidence into one operational system.

That is what makes AI-powered OSS strategically important. It is not simply another software category. It is the layer through which autonomous networks become governable, usable and commercially real.

symphony.rakuten.com/blog/...ext-phase-of-autonomous-networks

Vodafone Spain and Satellite Connect Europe reached a commercial agreement to launch direct-to-device broadband connectivity services in Spain, allowing standard smartphones to connect directly to satellites without external antennas, special devices or additional SIM cards. Vodafone Spain said that the service could be commercially available from 2027. In exceptional or emergency situations, the tech could be deployed earlier with institutional authorizations.

The company plans to begin working in the coming weeks with businesses, public administrations and strategic sectors to develop use cases across emergency response, security, defense, agriculture, industry, transportation, maritime environments and rural areas.

The offering will be part of Vodafone SAT, covering services from basic voice and messaging to broadband data and advanced applications for enterprises and public agencies.

ASTS-Vodafone JV Targets Europe

Satellite Connect Europe is the Luxembourg-based joint venture between AST SpaceMobile and Vodafone Group, created to offer direct-to-device satellite connectivity to mobile network operators in Europe.

The Spain agreement marks another step forward for the broader AST-Vodafone European strategy announced last year. The venture will distribute AST SpaceMobile's satellite services to European mobile operators through a turnkey model backed by Vodafone's engineering and network operations capabilities. Vodafone has previously called AST's satellites "antennas in the sky," extending mobile broadband to areas where terrestrial networks are limited or unavailable.

finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/...e-004928232.html

KDDI-SpaceX Consortium: KDDI already offers D2D capabilities through Starlink. SpaceX’s global track record, and trial use within Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, offer a possible advantage—but may mean lower autonomy and tailoring than other options.

MDA Space and ???: An MDA Space consortium is a potential wildcard pick, as it lacks a publicly stated Japanese partner. Mitsubishi Electric Corporation announced today that MDA Space has been selected to build the next-generation GEO satellites series for the Japan Ministry of Defense.

payloadspace.com/japan-eyes-sovereign-d2d-satellite-network/

AST SpaceMobile Aktie: Japan gibt 700-MHz-Band frei

Japanische Behörden empfehlen 700-MHz-Band für Satelliten-Direktverbindung. AST SpaceMobile und Rakuten planen gemeinsame Dienste als Starlink-Alternative.
Gestern, 11:29 Uhr

AST SpaceMobile hat eine entscheidende regulatorische Hürde in Japan genommen. Ein Regierungsausschuss empfiehlt das 700-MHz-Band für die direkte Satellitenkommunikation mit Smartphones. Das ebnet den Weg für das geplante Gemeinschaftsunternehmen mit dem Mobilfunkriesen Rakuten.

Allianz gegen Starlink

Die Empfehlung der Behörden stützt gezielt Dienste über Satelliten in einer niedrigen Erdumlaufbahn. Rakuten-Chef Hiroshi Mikitani sieht in dem Projekt einen kritischen Baustein für die nationale Sicherheit Japans. Die Partner wollen eine robuste Alternative zu Starlink von SpaceX etablieren.
Der Vorteil des Systems liegt in der einfachen Handhabung. Nutzer benötigen keine spezielle Hardware für die Satellitenverbindung. Das Joint Venture plant erste eingeschränkte Dienste für Ende 2026. Eine landesweite Abdeckung soll im Geschäftsjahr 2027 folgen.

www.boerse-express.com/news/articles/...-mhz-band-frei-921255