Rakuten, Japan's largest e-commerce company which is controlled by billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani, has reportedly announced that it is going to acquire Cyprus-based application maker Viber Media for $900 million. The main objective behind this is that the company wants to expand it's overseas empire that includes Canadian e-reader company Kobo.
Rakuten offers services from financing to shopping to online video.
The has been going through a tough patch due to shrinking population and weak consumer spending at home, Hiroshi is trying Rakuten to gain it's status back and through this deal with Viber they can double the number of users in their digital empire.
This deal will not only benefit Rakuten as Viber will potentially add Rakuten Group's nearly 225 million members to its existing user base of 300 million registered users. However, the Rakuten-Viber pairing might pose a significant new challenge to rival Line, which announced crossing the 300 million registered users benchmark back in November 2013 and is aiming for the 500 million milestone in 2014. (Source: dnaindia)
Rakuten seeks to become the number one internet services company in the world and to achieve this goal it has acquired e-reading platform Kobo for 315 million dollars, Spanish streaming video
service Wuaki.tv and Viki, a global video streaming platform that
crowdsources translated subtitles, for a reported 200 million dollars.
Rakuten generates about $4 billion in annual revenue from its main businesses, the online shopping mall with tens of thousands of merchants, travel service and web-based bank.
The has been going through a tough patch due to shrinking population and weak consumer spending at home, Hiroshi is trying Rakuten to gain it's status back and through this deal with Viber they can double the number of users in their digital empire.
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| Hiroshi Mikitani |
This deal will not only benefit Rakuten as Viber will potentially add Rakuten Group's nearly 225 million members to its existing user base of 300 million registered users. However, the Rakuten-Viber pairing might pose a significant new challenge to rival Line, which announced crossing the 300 million registered users benchmark back in November 2013 and is aiming for the 500 million milestone in 2014. (Source: dnaindia)
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| Hiroshi Mikitani and Viber's Founder Talmon Marco |
Rakuten generates about $4 billion in annual revenue from its main businesses, the online shopping mall with tens of thousands of merchants, travel service and web-based bank.
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