Rakuten records slight boost in subscribers, while mobile business suffers

Japan’s Rakuten Group has reported its FAST platform Rakuten TV saw steady growth in subscribers, with the total number of Rakuten TV users reaching 77.7 million, up by 42.1% year on year (YoY).

The company also revealed Rakuten Viki users also increased by 25.2% YoY to 74.6 million. Despite the boost of subscribers growth had slightly slowed down compared to the first quarter which recorded an increase of 44.8% YoY.

The FAST channel operator said overall revenue for the second quarter was 497.2 billion yen which was up by 9.7% year on year.

Advertising also delivered strong as strong performance, with revenue in the advertising business going up from 48.3 billion yen in the first quarter to 50.2 billion yen. It also saw an 12.7% increase from 2022’s second quarter. The company notes the growth sees the company on track to reach 200 billion yen in revenue for FY2023.

The FinTech segment achieved significant growth in both revenue and profit for Q2 FY2023, with revenue of 181.0 billion yen, up 13.3% YoY, and Non-GAAP operating income of 33.0 billion yen, up 31.2% YoY.

Elsewhere, Rakuten Mobile revenue in the second quarter was 80.1 billion yen, down 0.9% YoY. Rakuten pointed this to a significant decrease in revenue from the Energy business caused by Rakuten’s Denki’s rate revisions and other factors. It comes following the departure of Tareq Amin representative director and co-CEO of Rakuten Mobile and subsidiary Rakuten Symphony after five years.