Rakuten Group is a Japanese conglomerate that owns a number of e-commerce and mobile companies. The company continues to struggle with its debt burden while strengthening its financial position.
Rakuten Group's total debt currently stands at more than 1.5 trillion yen, of which 800 billion yen are due to be repaid by the end of 2025. Meanwhile, most of the losses are related to the Rakuten Mobile unit, which was launched in April 2020.
Rakuten Mobile had 5.2 million subscribers at the end of September, and its market share in Japan reached 2.5%. Although the unit's annual revenue totaled 351 billion yen in 2022, accounting for 18% of Rakuten's total revenue, the group reported operating losses for 13 consecutive quarters, mainly due to Rakuten Mobile. As a result, Rakuten's cumulative losses totaled 819 billion yen.
According to Reuters, the worst period for the mobile division was the first quarter of 2021, when Rakuten Mobile posted an operating loss of 132 billion yen. In the most recent quarter, the company posted a loss of 81 billion yen.
It's worth noting that the high cost of building and launching the mobile division was largely financed by corporate bonds.
In March 2021, Rakuten made a profit of 242 billion yen from the sale of new and treasury shares, including the sale of an 8.32% stake in Japan Post Holdings.
In November 2022, the Group sold a 19.99% stake in Rakuten Securities to Mizuho Securities for 80 billion yen.
In May 2023, Rakuten sold its stake in the Japanese supermarket chain Seiyu for 22 billion yen. In addition, at the same time, the Group raised 296 billion yen through the sale of new shares in a public offering and a third-party placement, including a share owned by Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani.
In April 2023, the Group raised 71.8 billion yen from the initial public offering of Rakuten Bank, the largest IPO in Japan since 2018. The listing reduced Rakuten's stake to 63.3%.
In November 2023, Rakuten sold another 29% stake in Rakuten Securities to Mizuho Securities for 87 billion yen.
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