Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten struggles to retake the lead from Amazon

RAKUTEN is a jack-of-all-trades. Since pioneering e-commerce in Japan in 1997, it has been a rare example of a highly entrepreneurial Japanese firm. Today it spans more than 70 businesses providing credit cards, a travel agency, a golf-reservation system, matchmaking, wedding planning and insurance. It owns Viber, a calling and messaging app and has invested heavily in Lyft, a car-hailing service. Now it is adding another: on April 9th the government gave Rakuten a concession to operate Japan’s fourth mobile network (Rakuten currently runs mobile services using another operator’s infrastructure).

Rakuten sees this as the next step in building its “ecosystem”. It reckons it retains its approximately 95m registered users in Japan by being a trusted brand that can provide customers with everything they need at every stage of their life, and by rewarding their loyalty. Customers get points if they use their popular Rakuten credit cards, for example. These they can then spend on other…Continue reading