Rakuten’s initial plan for mobile had been a 7-year buildout. Instead, Rakuten accelerated that plan, based on a cloud-native and open vision, resulting in a higher rate of spend over a shorter period. Its mobile strategy now enters “phase 2” – establishing the profit structure of the business now that the buildout is largely complete with 98%+ coverage. Rakuten Mobile’s “phase 3” will be accelerating customer acquisition (massively increasing its rivals’ churn) to become Japan’s
#1 mobile service provider.
The majority of Rakuten Mobile’s 4G coverage is compete – around 15% of base stations (8,000 out of a target of 60,000+) remain to be built, by the end of 2023. During 2023, Rakuten will see a “drastic” decline in its cost base (an improvement estimated at around $110m per month).
Driving down roaming traffic (today around 4.2%) is a key objective in order to eliminate roaming costs.
Rakuten estimates that is has delivered more-or-less nationwide population coverage at just 20% of the capex of existing mobile operators in Japan.
As we have highlighted before, Rakuten draws attention to its cost advantage for heavy data users. A network that scales allows Rakuten to positively encourage data-hungry subscribers onto its network. And better-connected subscribers are better connected to everything else.
The average Rakuten users uses 18.4GB/month, more than twice the average for users of other networks.
ARPU is also steadily increasing at around $19/month.
Profitability improvements are in part down to decreased roaming charges.
Enterprise is an increasingly important segment. The Rakuten Mobile Business Plan was launched in Jan 2023, with 600+ customers.
Rakuten Mobile also plans to launch high-speed internet services using its fiber backbone.
appledoreresearch.com/2023/02/14/rakuten-group-results-fy2022/Rakuten’s initial plan for mobile had been a 7-year buildout. Instead, Rakuten accelerated that plan, based on a cloud-native and open vision, resulting in a higher rate of spend over a shorter period. Its mobile strategy now enters “phase 2” – establishing the profit structure of the business now that the buildout is largely complete with 98%+ coverage. Rakuten Mobile’s “phase 3” will be accelerating customer acquisition (massively increasing its rivals’ churn) to become Japan’s
#1 mobile service provider.
The majority of Rakuten Mobile’s 4G coverage is compete – around 15% of base stations (8,000 out of a target of 60,000+) remain to be built, by the end of 2023. During 2023, Rakuten will see a “drastic” decline in its cost base (an improvement estimated at around $110m per month).
Driving down roaming traffic (today around 4.2%) is a key objective in order to eliminate roaming costs.
Rakuten estimates that is has delivered more-or-less nationwide population coverage at just 20% of the capex of existing mobile operators in Japan.
As we have highlighted before, Rakuten draws attention to its cost advantage for heavy data users. A network that scales allows Rakuten to positively encourage data-hungry subscribers onto its network. And better-connected subscribers are better connected to everything else.
The average Rakuten users uses 18.4GB/month, more than twice the average for users of other networks.
ARPU is also steadily increasing at around $19/month.
Profitability improvements are in part down to decreased roaming charges.
Enterprise is an increasingly important segment. The Rakuten Mobile Business Plan was launched in Jan 2023, with 600+ customers.
Rakuten Mobile also plans to launch high-speed internet services using its fiber backbone.
appledoreresearch.com/2023/02/14/rakuten-group-results-fy2022/