The less bumpy way to ride e-commerce = Rakuten

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More than just a telecom operator - platform for a wider ecosystem

Data governance is the foundation of AI use", Rakuten Mobile CDO tells London conference

By James Dartnell
May 16, 2024

Rakuten Mobile’s Chief Data Officer Madhukiran Medithe discussed the importance of sound data governance as the most critical starting point for AI use during an on-stage interview at FutureNet World 2024. Medithe delved into the ways that data is a cornerstone in the telco-techco transition.
Sound data governance and compliance is essential if telcos are to take advantage of any AI-related opportunities, Rakuten Mobile’s Chief Data Officer has told a leading London telco conference.

Speaking in an on-stage interview at FutureNet World 2024 in London, Medithe told an expert audience how Rakuten Mobile has prioritised “cleaning” its data to ensure that the operator is able to accurately and responsibly deploy AI models. Moderator Chris Lewis of Lewis Insight quizzed Medithe on the ways that sound data use can form a cornerstone of a successful telco-techco transition.

“Rakuten started capturing data from day zero, and we’re reaping the benefits of that today,” Medithe said. “We have a huge amount of data from across our ecosystem. We know our subscribers, their usage patterns, the types of applications they are using, what services they're looking for, and how they are acting. We always see from the device perspective how the user is experiencing our network.”

Medithe went on to emphasise the criticality of responsible data usage. This, he said, was an absolute must before telcos can attempt any sort of AI initiatives. “We need to be very careful with how we use data,” he said. “Governance and compliance are fundamental in its successful use. Data cleaning and integration are a must because any changes you try to do in real-time or non real-time will also directly impact the customer experience. Today, whatever your modelling may be, compliance must be involved. Even though you take an open API or a third party application, when you go down to such a minute level of data - the subscriber location, address details and type of device - you should be very, very cautious about driving your governance and compliance. This is massive.”

Medithe also emphasised the importance of the data cleaning process. “Unifying data sources from different parts of the network is essential,” he said. “Data cleaning is the most difficult part, but it’s an absolute must. Data science is very niche in telecom because you're trying to capture the data at a millisecond rate. I would say 60-70% of my engineers’ time is spent on data cleaning. When you’re trying to stitch data from the RAN to the core, you need to do more from a governance perspective. With things like subscriber profiling, you need to be very careful and clear on how you’re trying to use the data.”

Medithe rounded off his interview by stressing the need for telcos to become platform companies, as opposed to seeing themselves as a traditional providers of services or utilities.

“Mobile network operators should not view themselves exclusively as service providers - they need to be platform providers. That starts with your data,” Medithe said. “What Rakuten Mobile has done is a massive achievement. Automation and AI are part of Rakuten Group’s DNA, and that has allowed Rakuten Mobile to be more than just a telecom operator - it's a platform for our wider ecosystem. From top to bottom, we try to deploy learnings from our data.”

https://symphony.rakuten.com/blog/data-governance-is-the-fou…

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Rakuten Mobile auf gutem Weg

Rakuten Mobile hat bereits 6,5 Millionen Abonnenten für seinen Mobilfunkdienst ab dem 8. April 2024 erreicht1. Das Unternehmen hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, bis Ende 2024 8 bis 10 Millionen Abonnenten zu erreichen2. Angesichts des stetigen Wachstums und der Einführung attraktiver Programme wie dem “Saikyo Family Program” und dem “Saikyo Youth Program” scheint Rakuten Mobile auf einem guten Weg zu sein, dieses Ziel zu erreichen.

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Rakuten Viber and KIKO Milano bridge the gap between online and offline beauty experiences

Rakuten Viber and KIKO Milano bridge the gap between online and offline beauty experiences with innovative virtual try-on

Mariia Martyrosian

Global PR & Marketing Innovations Director at Rakuten Viber

June 6, 2024

Rakuten Viber, the global leader in private and secure messaging and voice-based communication, has teamed up with KIKO Milano, No. 1 makeup brand in Italy, distributed exclusively by Fais Group, to transform the beauty shopping experience in Greece. Now, Greek users can try on the iconic KIKO Milano 3D Hydra Lipgloss virtually within the Rakuten Viber app and then quickly buy it with just a few clicks.

KIKO Milano creatively uses branded Viber Lenses for a virtual try-on, blending the physical and digital ("phy-gital") experiences to create a smarter, more engaging way for consumers to interact with beauty products. This innovation leverages the trend of online shopping, as 67% of internet users in Greece shopped online last year, according to Eurostat.

https://www.forbusiness.viber.com/en/blog/post/rakuten-viber…

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Stage X will become a Rakuten Symphony customer

Stage X can certainly learn a lot from Rakuten Mobile's experience as a market newcomer, including the fact that it is in for a tough ride.

The deal is not just about sharing experience though, although the firms are highlighting that element in particular.

It will also see Stage X become a Rakuten Symphony customer, which suggests it is looking to roll out cloud-native Open RAN infrastructure. At this stage, the company simply refers to buying "industry leading telecom solutions" from Rakuten's mobile technology arm though.

https://www.telecoms.com/5g-6g/stage-x-and-rakuten-tie-up-lo…

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Rakuten will be a big AI-winner

https://secure.investorplace.com/?cid=MKT781156&eid=MKT79454…

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Strong development of revenues of Rakuten

Year End 31st Dec Unit 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024E 2025E
Total Revenue ¥m 1,263,932 1,455,538 1,681,757 1,920,894 2,071,315 2,265,227 2,465,941

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Next step of Rakuten Mobile

Next step of Rakuten Mobile

At the same time, as we gain more subscribers, in addition to the focus on network quality and stability, we will also focus more on further enhancing customer experience and our service offerings. Of course, we need to offer the best coverage along with the best performance, but once we've done that, we aspire to provide more than just connectivity, and offer our subscribers a much richer experience through new innovative services and features. Our cloud native network architecture gives us the required flexibility and platform to do so.

https://corp.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/english/innovation/intervi…

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Total assets of Rakuten Bank, Ltd. from 2015 to 2024 (in trillion Japanese yen)

Published by Statista Research Department, May 15, 2024

As of March 2024, the total assets of Rakuten Bank, Ltd. amounted to around 13.5 trillion Japanese yen (about 95 billion USD). The bank's total assets increased from 11.6 trillion yen in the previous year and 1.34 trillion yen in 2015. Rakuten Bank, Ltd. is a Japanese online bank that is part of the Rakuten Group.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1309989/rakuten-bank-tot…

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The present and future of the OSS

Before looking at the present and future, he looked at the past. “When we designed the OSS system, it was for management of the network functions and figuring out if the network is performing good, bad, and connecting the dots. It has evolved into a service assurance [tool] where you could actually see services and know what the behavior of the services are. Now, when we see how we are evolving in terms of ecosystem technology, things have been super fast.”

This “super fast” evolution includes an embrace of IT and cloud-native computing best set practices, things like GitOps, AIOps, and other areas that are all new to the world of telecoms. And all in pursuit of the expectation that networks will become “agile, infinite and always available for any kind of use case to be supported.” In the march to network slicing, scaling in and scaling out, disaggregating hardware and software, pushing the user plane function to the edge and more, “I think OSS is a perfect place to have those synergies and figure out how we can convert multiple brains into applets. One of the functions could be automation, could be orchestration, could be workflow engines, and also about the digital maps which you need across the lifecycle management. I see OSS as a huge potential. I’m still trying to figure out what should be the right name for it. But, for me, this is the home of innovation, and if we want to do cultural revolution…think about future use cases, OSS has to be the platform.”

https://www.rcrwireless.com/20240422/telecom-software/rakute…

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Cash-Back Apps Market 2024

Report Attribute and Details:
Estimated market size by 2030: USD 4642.6 million
Market size in 2023: USD 2982.6 million
Growth Rate: From 2023 to 2030, the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) is 6.5%
Covered segments: Analysis of Type, Size, and End Use
Estimate base year: 2023
Historical data: spans 2017–2023
Forecast period: 2023–2030

List of TOP Competitors in Cash-Back Apps Market Report are:
Fetch Rewards
RetailMeNot
Ibotta
Prodege
Upside Services
Honey
Cashrewards
Rakuten Rewards
Dosh
Checkout 51

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cash-back-apps-market-2024-si…