Rakuten Mobile doubles down on customer value in face of inflation
1 day ago
“Our mission from day one has been to democratize Japan’s mobile industry.”
Speaking to journalists at a recent press conference in Harajuku, Rakuten Mobile Chairman Mickey Mikitani made a bold declaration: Five and a half years since launching Japan’s fourth major mobile carrier, Rakuten Mobile will not be raising its fees.
As inflation rises, Rakuten Mobile holds the line
Japan’s cost of living has become a national conversation, with consumer prices climbing more than 12% in five years, and wages struggling to keep up. Most sectors have passed these higher costs on to consumers, with one major exception: mobile telecommunications.
“When we launched, the average mobile bill in Tokyo was around 8,000 yen,” Mikitani reminded the audience. Rakuten Mobile’s arrival in 2020, with a single, unlimited plan capped at 2,980 a month, upended the market. Japan’s legacy carriers were forced to follow suit with more affordable offerings.
But five years on from Rakuten Mobile’s initial launch, bills are starting to creep back up. The weak yen, soaring energy costs, and rising labor costs have pushed other carriers to announce price hikes. Mikitani’s message, meanwhile, was the opposite: prices are staying put.
“This isn’t a we’re raising prices too announcement,” Mikitani told the journalists. “We’re continuing our low-cost, unlimited model. It’s our version of a price freeze declaration.”
How is Rakuten Mobile keeping prices so low?
Mikitani explained that Rakuten Mobile’s affordability is no accident; it’s baked into the network’s very architecture.
“We’re the only mobile network in the world that’s fully virtualized,” he said. “That means everything runs on software – not expensive, proprietary hardware.” This alone, he noted, has cut operating costs by as much as 30%.
Meanwhile, Rakuten Mobile’s embrace of Open RAN technology allows it to mix and match equipment from different vendors, avoiding vendor lock-in and keeping procurement costs flexible. “If vendor A becomes too expensive, we can go with vendor B, or C,” Mikitani said. “No one else in Japan can do that.”
Then, there’s artificial intelligence. Mikitani pointed to Rakuten Mobile’s use of what it calls RAN Intelligent Controller to dynamically adjust power to its 340,000 open RAN products around the country, depending on network traffic. “This year alone we’re cutting energy usage by 20%,” he continued. “Electricity prices are going up. This is how we fight back.”
At the same time, Mikitani emphasized Rakuten Mobile’s commitment to the Group’s bottom line. “We’re still a business. This has to be sustainable,” he said. “But we’re part of the broader Rakuten Ecosystem. When customers use Rakuten Mobile, they tend to use Rakuten Card, Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten Travel. The value comes back.”
This intelligent architecture and ecosystem-driven synergy are the secret to Rakuten Mobile’s affordability in Japan’s age of inflation. “We want people to connect freely, without worrying about price.”
Rakuten Mobile + U-NEXT: Streaming without limits
With price concerns dispelled, Rakuten Mobile took the opportunity to unveil the next step in the service’s evolution: entertainment. From October 1, Rakuten Mobile launched a new package in partnership with Japan’s largest homegrown streaming service, U-NEXT.
“This is a collaboration between two of Japan’s strongest companies,” said Rakuten Mobile CMO Naho Kono. “We’re not just aiming to be number one in mobile plans – we want to be number one in the overall experience.”
Rakuten Mobile CMO Kono.
U-NEXT has emerged as a leading player in Japan’s streaming space, offering over 350,000 titles, from Hollywood blockbusters and Korean dramas to live concerts, magazines, and even children’s books.
The new plan, called Rakuten Saikyo U-NEXT, allows subscribers to stream it all under one bill, without worrying about data caps. To celebrate the plan’s launch, the bundle will be available at no extra cost to Rakuten Mobile’s unlimited 2,980-yen tier until the end of January 2026, after which the full package will cost 3,980 yen before tax.
“Normally, U-NEXT alone costs 2,189 yen,” Kono said. “So getting mobile, unlimited data, and unlimited streaming for under 4,000 yen? That’s a huge deal.”
The bundle also supports family plans with up to four profiles per account, and will even include several live soccer matches each month from European leagues.
Since it was first announced in June 2025, the U-NEXT collaboration has already gathered significant interest, with over 100,000 users signing up during the pre-launch campaign.
Kono indicated that the partnership might be helping Rakuten Mobile reach new demographics. “We’re starting to see different age groups and usage patterns. It’s clear people are responding.”
To 10 million subscribers, and beyond
The conference also served as an opportunity to give an update on Rakuten Mobile’s overall progress. Subscribers have reached 9.5 million as of November 7, and the team is eyeing 10 million in the near future. But according to Chairman Mikitani, this is just the beginning.
“We’ve got the highest average data usage in the industry – 33.5GB per user per month,” he explained. “People are using our network like it’s meant to be used. That shows they trust it.”
For the long term, Mikitani stressed that Rakuten Mobile isn’t just about chasing subscriber milestones. “Being number one doesn’t just mean having the most customers. It means being the most used, the most trusted,” he said. “That’s our goal.”
With its software-driven infrastructure, advanced AI tools, and ecosystem strategy, it’s a goal Rakuten Mobile is uniquely prepared to pursue.
“We’re not tied down. We can adapt quickly. We’ve already turned EBITDA positive. The rest will follow,” he told the conference. “We still have a few tricks up our sleeve. But I’m not going to reveal those just yet.”
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