The combined resources of Rakuten and Baidu should prove to be a stiff test for Taobao.
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Unlike other e-commerce platforms, Rakuten offers a host of value-added services to merchants on its platform.
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Within Japan Rakuten is famous (or notorious) for mandating English in internal oral and written communications.
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Mikitani Hiroshi (49) is founder and CEO of the online marketing company Rakuten (Jasdaq 4755).
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Acquired by the Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten in January, Kobo recently passed the 10 million user mark.
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On its differentiation strategy, Rakuten positioned itself as a virtual shopping mall, based on a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model.
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The joint venture is called Rakuten China and launched on Tuesday, according to a report in the Asian Wall Street Journal.
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Merchants of various product types (i.e. electronics, fashion, health, pets) build online stores on the Rakuten platform and sell directly to customers.
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He has done this through overseas acquisitions, including Buy.com (US), Priceminister (France), Ikeda (now Rakuten Brasil), Tradoria (now Rakuten Deutschland), and Play.com (UK).
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According to the agreement that was announced in January, Rakuten will have a 51% ownership stake in the venture, while Baidu will own the remainder.
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Some, like Rakuten, have lots of money but no clear strategy.
According to Rakuten Malaysia CEO Masaya Ueno , it is the first venture in Southeast Asia region where Rakuten enters the market without any local partner.
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Rakuten is the latest entrant in the Malaysian e-commerce market.
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Sweeping economic reforms are opening up demand for business travel, notes Yoshihisa Yamada, an executive director at Rakuten, Japan's number one online travel firm and a 20% owner of Ctrip.
Rakuten China will operate in much the same way as the Japanese version, by providing a platform for thousands of vendors to sell their wares to users visiting the well-known website.
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Internet entrepreneur runs Japan's leading online shopping mall Rakuten.
Rakuten offers an additional layer of support by providing e-commerce consultants and experts to advise merchants on their online business strategy, implementation, sales and marketing as well as lead and revenue generation.
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He officially withdrew Rakuten from Keidanren in June.
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They are not Rakuten or Softbank.
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Rakuten by comparison is tiny.
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"It's not the kind of situation where fears are just going to fade away, since the required amount of aid that Spain will need is likely to mount given the increasing needs of local government, " said Masayuki Doshida, a senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities in Japan.
The struggle to make a profit and reduce debt is still being waged at some big companies, including Daiei, once the biggest supermarket chain, Japan Airlines, Sanyo Electric, Rakuten, the biggest internet shopping mall, and Softbank (though the last could be cushioned by its large holding of Yahoo Japan shares).
However, confirming what Venture Capitalists know well, Japan still is the second-largest mobile market in terms of revenues, plus the second-largest advertising market with an accelerating pick-up in e-commerce, especially among high-spending young adults (even Rakuten, a high-flying Japanese domestic e-commerce site, is flush with cash and looking to expand to foreign markets).
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