Rakuten Group Inc

TSE:4755

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q1

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for making yourselves available today. We now would like to start the Rakuten 2023 First Quarter Financial Results Meeting. We have disclosed the latest consolidated financial reports at 3:00 p.m. today. You can view this data on our corporate website page for investors, along with the presentation with documents used in this meeting.

So Mr. Mikitani will give the presentation. Mickey, please.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Thank you very much. So this is streaming. And you are watching me via video in FY 2023 first quarter consolidated financial results, briefing session will be started. And first of all, summary. And the first one is Internet Services, and it's performing pretty well. And other companies are struggling to some extent. But the -- first of all, the Rakuten Mobile contributed to lifting Ichiba GMS and also the Ichiba performance pretty well, standalone and FinTech and Rakuten Bank and Rakuten Securities comparing to the year before, revenue went up by 7.6% and OI plus 20.4%. As you know, on April 21, and the Rakuten Bank listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime Market.

As for the Mobile, and I will elaborate this later, continues the loss improvement is made and the revenue is improving, and we are achieving improvement here. And then this morning, Rakuten Mobile held a press conference and we made some announcements there, a new roaming contract. With that, we will be able to enhance the customer experience and also it will contribute to control our cost to a large extent. And first of all, Rakuten Group consolidated EBITDA continuous improvement and then the consolidated revenue compared to the year before, plus 9.3%, which is JPY 475.6 billion. And also the consolidated EBITDA with JPY 7.4 billion and made a further improvement here.

So the major KPIs. So global GTV, plus 23.3% Y-o-Y, which is JPY 9.1 million and domestic EC GMS performing pretty well at JPY 1.4 trillion, plus 12.2% increase Y-o-Y and then consolidated revenue, plus 9.3% Y-o-Y and non-GAAP OI made improvement by JPY 30.2 billion comparing to the year before. And the Rakuten Card Shopping GTV reached JPY 4.9 trillion. And comparing to the year before, it went up by 22.2%, and Rakuten Card Issued, we are almost reaching to JPY 30 million. And the Rakuten Securities General Accounts as of today, it already went beyond JPY 9 million and then marketing Bank Accounts, which is JPY 13.74 million.

So this is the overall business portfolio of Rakuten business structure and the other bank insurance securities, payment, Internet service and also Rakuten [ Rewards ] and other international business and mobile. So in each industry, we have established our leading position. And then -- so the plus 10.3% of the MAU, we have increased the MAU, which is over JPY 40 million. And then the ratio of users of 2 or more services is 76.1%. This is actually how strong our ecosystem is among that. One of the key point is the Rakuten Super Point, Rakuten Point. So in the last 12 months, it reached about JPY 640 billion, and SPU went up by 20%. So our ecosystem's power is getting stronger and stronger.

So in the previous briefing session, membership value formula was disclosed from the previous financial results briefing. So as of the end of Q1 '23, JPY 8.6 trillion, which is plus 22.7% Y-o-Y basis. So the membership value is increasing.

So let's look at the different segments. Starting with the Mobile segment. Mobile business year-on-year plus JPY 26.2 billion. And for revenue, JPY 57.9 billion. And so 25.3% year-on-year for the -- and so we are -- and Mobile segment overall, JPY 96.3 billion. So it's getting better. And this is looking at the revenue and operating income and EBITDA of Mobile segment. EBITDA, this is after adjustment, so minus JPY 50 billion. So we have peaked out and that means improvement is on track. And as for Rakuten Mobile.

In the morning today, the Rakuten Mobile held a press conference, and so there are some overlaps in my presentation, but bear with me, please. Rakuten Mobile, we're trying to aspire to be the #1 carrier in Japan. So we would like to lower the high price of mobile communication services so that we can have the consumers of Japan efficiently and effectively use their money. That was the key point, and we have been trying to do that. And so we're going to become #1 in the future, but towards that we have to leverage our ecosystem, the Rakuten ecosystem as well as the latest network technology so as to have this cost structure advantage leveraged fully.

Later, when we talk about Symphony, Tareq Amin will give more details. But fully virtualized technology is used to have a major gap in cost and also including automation, automation will push further down the cost. That is what we're striving to do. But having said that, of course, for what reasons, do people choose their carriers for mobile services? More than half of the people said price is important. And quality of the network comes as the second significant reason.

Of course, we have one price to offer at Rakuten and so 39.4% of the survey said Rakuten Mobile is #1. But we ranked the sixth in terms of network quality. So once we can improve on that quality aspect, then we can have increase in ARPU as well as the number of subscribers. And also, one of the reasons for -- or the key reason for churn of Rakuten Mobile is the quality of the network. So we want to make improvements on that. But having said that, in the past 3 years or 4 years, so we have been opening up base station in a rapid pace. As of April end 4G, 57,378 (sic) [ 57,358 ] went on-air. So this is unprecedented pace of opening up the base station and the population coverage is 98.4%. But we still have some barriers to overcome. That was how we feel in the customer's voice.

So Rakuten uses flat rate and JPY 2,980 for unlimited data usage that is great, and we can use points to pay the fee. So the customer satisfaction level is increasing. Having said that -- but the indoor and busy area and the subway, so the coverage in those area needs to be improved. That is a lot of voice from the customers. So initial target, we want to make this in 1 year. However, not like that, we should do that immediately. And as announced earlier, and I'm sure you already know this, with partnership with KDDI, we strengthened the partnership with them, and then we increased the population coverage up to 99.9% immediately.

And then the -- in the Rakuten on area, we had unlimited usage of data. But through this, we have the SAI-KYO Plan, the most popular plan. So we can increase this up to 99.9%, including the partnership partner network. On top of that, -- and then in the Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, we will be leveraging Platinum Band. With that, the indoor, busy area and the subway, the connectivity can be possible. Looking at the map or the region, I think this is easier to understand. The left side is 98.4% area. And this area is based on Rakuten's own network and the orange area is a partner's network. But basically, from June 1 and onward, this will be -- color will be changed, everything into pink. So the Rakuten, the mobile, the coverage will become the industry highest standard.

And today, we have announced under SAI-KYO plan. This is evolution from the UN-LIMIT VII, and this was what we announced this morning. So repeatedly saying, in the partner area, if it goes beyond 5 gigabyte and then it will slow down to 1 mega bps. And then you have to charge JPY 600. So we will eliminate to abolish that kind of limitation with this new plan and the coverage improves and the price is same. Therefore, so the high-speed data communication in overseas market or the phone call in the overseas from Japan to overseas or overseas to Japan, it will become free. And also domestic call, it will become free based on the link communication and the Link Desktop to be launched in August 1.

And then as for the sign-up, so Internet 40 million people visit the site every day, so they come to our site and then the one click is needed to open up the new sign-up. And then the -- moving out from the other carrier would be done with one click. I think this is a quite compelling offering. And then repeated these things, so nationwide unlimited use of high-speed communication -- data communication is available with the same price as today. So if you use up to 3 gigabyte, it is JPY 980 up to 20 gigabyte is JPY 1,980. So this is a quite attractive price. And as for the network area, we have more area with unlimited data usage, repeatedly saying subway and busy area and skyscape, indoor of the -- height of building, and we will strengthen the partnership in those areas.

With that -- so in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka area, I think the connectivity would be improved. And then the handover from the partner network. So Rakuten to KDDI handover, there was no problem. But coming back from their network to ours, there were some latency or lag. But because of the change of the software configuration, it will become seamless. So the Rakuten SAI-KYO plan is the plan that I wanted to explain, and we will start the service from June 1.

So this is it, as for the cost. So the most frequently asked question will be the cost of this as a new roaming. And first of all, cash portion -- over the past 3 years, '23, '24, '25. In '23, well already format has passed. So the -- more than JPY 100 billion reduction into our next year and the 2 years after about JPY 300 billion. CapEx reduction is planned.

Next, looking at the cost side. So what about the details of the roaming? Because we are under NDA, I am not able to explain in detail. But the JPY 15 billion per month cost reduction is our target and this hasn't changed at all. And the new roaming contract would contribute to our financial health. And this is the structure, and I would like you to understand in such a way. So KDDI roaming area will become the unlimited. And then this new or renewed roaming contracts support that.

And then on top of that -- so depending on the application conditions, I believe that the 700 megahertz and 800, 900 megahertz in the future, this the platinum bond is something we would like to acquire. And for 700 megahertz and allocation request is already made public. So this is a time line. It's up to the processes that we need to go through. But as for the allocation, probably after autumn.

As for user acquisition, until now in the Rakuten Group, unlike other companies, there have been a lot of applications amongst the heavy Internet users. We have been focusing our attention in that segment. However, having said that, switchover or churn from other carriers or vice versa. We had to go through a very cumbersome process, but we want to promote this one-stop process. In other words, no need for cancellation process anymore.

And another is something that was announced today. This is a one-click activation. eSIM will be the primary method being used in the future. And I think most of the people are already using mobile phones and eSIM can be used. And in our Rakuten Group, a lot of people are actually going through the authentication identification confirmation process using eSIM. And therefore, for data, without know your customer process, one-click activation will be necessary, and that's it. And the voice SIM, the normal SIM, for that as well as soon as possible, we would like to introduce this one-click activation method as well.

To be more specific, this process is explained quite well in the video, which I would like to run now.

[Presentation]

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

So, you can see that this is really epoch-making. On the website of Rakuten Group. If you just log in a username or password. Don't have to be input credit card once it is registered already, then one-click activation is possible. And therefore, the number of subscribers can really increase dramatically as a result, we're hoping. And right now, the rate of churn has been coming down dramatically as well. And so I think we are on par with the other carriers in this market for those that have been with us for 1 year.

And with the SAI-KYO plan that was announced today, we would like to reduce this churn rate more dramatically and so that we will be having lower churn rate than the market average. And also synergistic effect is being felt in a major fashion as well. Rakuten Mobile is getting referrals from the ecosystem. One-click activation that I just explained will really further push this in this direction. And then conversely, Rakuten Mobile users will strengthen the Rakuten ecosystem. And so we're already seeing that happening. So acquisition of customers, among others, is being promoted in such a fashion.

Now for your reference, the different services by the different carriers have certain ecosystems. The net promoting score is being used for comparison. Rakuten Group compared to others is by 20 points or more higher than the other competitors. So we would like to leverage this ecosystem so that we can use further -- increase further the number of subscribers. So 40 million monthly active users and so we would like to increase that further to 30%, 40% against the current level of 10% so that we can increase our profits and profitability.

ARPU as well overall, so JPY 2,552 for the group overall, JPY 2,652. So once we have more data usage, this number, ARPU is expected to go further upward. And by utilizing various services, ARPUs will go up. But the first step for us that we should focus on is the increase of the number of subscribers and data, 20 gigabyte on average, which is more than double the other carriers' data usage. So it is growing very steadily.

And in addition, I am not going into details, but corporate customers. The corporate contracts or corporate mobile contracts is one area where Rakuten Group, we have 900,000 such partners, and we are trying to have this 25% market share, and we are on track towards that goal. And in addition, advertisements within Rakuten Link and also optical fiber communications being leveraged for Rakuten Hikari -- what was that exact name, I hope I'm okay. So this is Rakuten Hikari connected by FLET'S, which is fiber-to-home, which is on track as well and growing.

And Rakuten Symphony presentation will be made by Tareq Amin, who is the CEO of Rakuten Symphony.

[Tareq Amin, executive]

Good afternoon. Today, I'm delighted to share with you the financial results of Rakuten Symphony. What makes Rakuten Symphony unique, it's an approach to how we enable connectivity. It is one of the few companies in the world that have a software-centric platform for connectivity. We are organized against 5 business unit segments. Starting from the cloud. This is the world's largest edge cloud platform. radio access network, we are the leader, innovator and Open RAN and the pioneers in this technology, thanks to all the efforts that we have done in Japan through Rakuten Mobile.

OSS, we are leading this segment through automation, ruthless efficiency that will deliver productivity and autonomy network, and BSS and Internet services. So I will go through these segments just to give you key highlights of what we have achieved in Q1 '23.

On our cloud business unit, this is really exciting for us. We look at the cloud as an enablement layer to offer massive disruption on offering elasticity, capacity, reliability and security. Symcloud offers one of the largest edge cloud platform in the world consisting of our cloud platform to enable virtualization, containerization, storage platform, orchestration. And one of the key highlights for us in Q1 is really enabling through a large partnership with a global technology firm, our reselling agreement of our Symcloud storage. This will enable us to resell our storage on-prem to offer stateless edge use cases for both retail and telco segment.

Our value proposition is enable customers to modernize on-prem and edge infrastructure. And the business model for this really meets what Symphony is all about, a committed annual revenue of return, a flexible pay-as-you-use billing and a scalable as-a-service revenue model for our cloud business unit. On radio, an Open RAN very specifically. We have been tirelessly working and leading this industry, looking at opportunities to constantly deliver on quality, reliability and scalability for Open RAN technology. We are very well positioned to lead an impeding industry transformation for further progress and achievements in Q1 '23. One of the key highlights to share with you is our -- we have signed our first private 5G network through an Axiata signed contract.

This enables us to really work with Axiata Group and offering private 5G infrastructure across 6 Asian countries. Second is our Open RAN network agreement with Salam Telecom. It offers an opportunity for us to go into Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf countries. And the next-generation telco network through an MOU that we have done with Zain. And another really noteworthy mention is the highlight that we have done by opening our O-RAN Customer Experience Center in the U.K. for telecom operators to help enable IoT and integration for Open RAN. We're very, very excited about the progress that we are doing on the radio axis and a lot more to be done, hopefully, in the coming quarters.

And one of the key things I also want to touch base on is what we have been doing, not only in greenfield opportunities for Open RAN, but it is really vital. And our Rakuten Symphony team and our radio engineering R&D team is best-in-class, working on closing the ran feature parity gaps and brownfield. We have been tirelessly working on this. And I could tell you today by Q2, we will hit them a very big inflection point for us, where we will be at feature parity with all legacy software features that exist in brownfield operators. This is really, really very exciting. And this is what we've been focused on over the last 1 year to enable brownfield deployment in commercial environment.

On our OSS segment, this is really a very exciting and I think this is one of the key differentiation for Rakuten Symphony. This is really the AI that will drive the productivity, the autonomy that we're looking on how you run and manage network, the relentless productivity that we are driving. And thanks to all of the trials and validation in Rakuten Mobile. We have taken best-in-class of this software of how to run, manage, build, engineer and operate network and deploy it worldwide.

Today, our OSS has over 100,000 registered platform users. We are deployed in 11 global customers and a very healthy pipeline of north of USD 3 billion relating just to the segment alone and a very comprehensive product portfolio on this OSS/BSS of over 17 products. A noteworthy mention just to give you a use case and a study for this is a partnership that we have done with a global OEM, where Rakuten Symphony replace an array of legacy solutions and is helping and aiding orchestration of global site deployment and rollout across multiple geographies, multiple countries, approximately 3 million sites deployed using Rakuten Symphony platform. A 100-plus countries covered 11,000 monthly active users. We're really, really excited about this segment and what it could potentially lead to especially around autonomy in networks.

Our Internet and Services team has also been leading in disruption in the innovation for OTT application. One of the key highlights to mention here is our recent announcement of Communication Platform as a Service. This is an extremely healthy segment. We have launched in Japan, only 2 products today, our A2P messaging and our chat messaging is already launched with significant amount of revenue growth in less than 2 months and Rakuten Drive already launched globally for commercial deployment.

And financial results. We are now hitting USD 76 million in Q1 '23. This represents 14.6% year-over-year growth. We are tracking against our target and our budgeted goals, project delivery being well underway. We continue to grow with anchor customers, and we are accelerating new account with healthy pipeline conversion. And then finally, the Rakuten Symphony growth plan is always started with inception. This is what Rakuten Mobile is all about. Rakuten Mobile has enabled Rakuten Symphony to become what it is today. The trials and validation in Japan and to get the quality, reliability and the scalability have enabled Rakuten to lead, especially Open RAN across the world. This is the inception stage, and we are past this stage. We are now looking at profitability stage in fiscal year '23, '24. We want to be flawless about our execution for our anchor global account, look at commercial O-RAN deployment in brownfield. This is vital and accelerate our traction and our leadership in both OSS and cloud and this will lead significant improvement in operational efficiency for our future customers.

And as we look at the last stage, it is all about revenue growth as we look at Rakuten being a world leader as a pioneer, a partner of choice, especially for O-RAN deployment and OSS. And with this, thank you very much, and I will conclude my presentation on Rakuten Symphony.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] So that was the Symphony part. Next, we would like to move on to the Internet Service segment and FinTech segment. Now this time, there are 2 things. Rakuten Mobile, SPU cost in full amount used to be born, but now it is transferred to Rakuten Ichiba. So that's one thing. And Also, the content business that were included have also been transferred. Basically, the domestic e-commerce GMS highlights, 12.2% increase, [ JPY 1.4, JPY 1.5 ] trillion, while other competitors are struggling. And so you can see that we are having a very steady growth here. So JPY 1.415 billion.

And revenue. So this is a 12.1% increase, which is JPY 205 billion almost. And without the SPU cost transfer, it would have been a growth of 12.5%. So this difference in the recognition this transfer has a major impact. From the perspective of the analysts, Rakuten Mobile has been contributing to the ecosystem profits. And don't you consider that in terms of profit and loss, that has been raised many, many times in the past. And therefore, for the SPU cost, there has been this transfer being made Mobile to Ichiba.

And this is showing the major KPIs, especially the number of purchasers compared to pre-COVID days, about a 30% increase is seeing and has not come down from that level. In overseas market, they had a spike and then the purchasers dropped in number. However, 16.6% purchase amount per user is the increase. In other words, in terms of both quality and volume, there has been this increase even after the COVID settling.

And for other areas such as travel and rewards, which is actually Rakuten Rebates in Japan and Rakuten Fashion and Rakuten GORA, as you can see, they show very strong growth, especially Rakuten Travel, I must say they're just booming or they're really successful. One of the reasons is because of a little less than 5 million users from the Rakuten mobile users that are becoming loyal users. And so MNP actually contracts actually will bring benefits to these users as well. And as for the growth investment businesses logistics as the primary part where we have this collaboration with Japan Post, the logistics volume is increasing.

Just looking at the EC market. Overall, in Japan, the difference in volume is that we have about JPY 5.8 billion -- or rather JPY 5.8 trillion on an annual basis. As you can see here, so this is how things compare in the past 12 months -- last 12 months. Z Holdings, actually three point six or rather JPY 3,602 billion and Mercari JPY 951 billion, ZOZO JPY 544 billion. So we are by far the #1 here.

For the domestic e-commerce market, the penetration rate is only 9% still. The world average is 20%, meaning there's a potential of that number doubling by year 2030, GMS of JPY 10 trillion is what we are targeting.

In terms of profitability or profits, advertisement is very important where other competitors are struggling, but e-commerce advertising for Rakuten is what we can benefit because it's close to where people buy things. So in this quarter, we have this increase of 15.8%, JPY 483 billion is for this first quarter. And you can see that there's a lot of growth in the merchandise e-commerce platform advertisement.

For other Internet services, Rakuten Rewards in the United States is quite profitable. And for GMS, it's USD 2.6 billion. On a quarterly basis, it's over JPY 300 billion. And Kogo -- Kobo rather, Rakuten Kobo, the user is now more than 60 million users. Asian [indiscernible] the center for Rakuten Viki over 70 million people using this service and Viber as well or rather TV rather, 76.1 million and Viber, 1.4 billion. It was already profitable, but unfortunately, because of the situation in Ukraine, well, actually, this aggression by Russia actually had a negative impact in terms of the revenue. So there is a little bit of a deficit.

So the next, FinTech, Rakuten Card, Rakuten Bank, Securities, Insurance and Payment, including them, all of them performed pretty well. So let me go one by one. So before that, the overall the revenue and OI the revenues plus 7.6% Y-o-Y basis and OI 26.6 billion plus 20.4% Y-o-Y growth and looking at the KPI, Rakuten Card, number of issuance, 28.63 million, close to 30 million will achieve one of our goals. And the number of the accounts of Rakuten Bank accounts reaching to 15 million, and we will be able to achieve that in near future and Rakuten Securities 10 million accounts, it's visible now. So we are #1 looking on nonconsolidated basis.

And let me talk about the Rakuten Card. The revenue, JPY 75 billion. So the point contribution to the revenue changed and then there is no change of the revenue. But looking at the revenue here at the bottom line, so we moved -- which is in -- the lower bar went up. So the -- in apple-to-apple basis comparison, revenue went up by 12.0% in OI, non-GAAP OI plus 12.3%, which is JPY 12.5 billion. So it's performing steadily growing. And then the GTV, even if we grew to this level, I think still GTV is amazing, plus 22.2% Y-o-Y basis. And casting balance, plus 11.2% Y-o-Y and shopping revolving balance plus 2.4% and the interest on installments plus 25.9% Y-o-Y basis, so it's performing pretty well.

And the Rakuten Card. Under the leadership of Hosaka-san, we are targeting triple the achievement and JPY 30 million -- JPY 32 billion GTV 30% of GTV share, we are steadily moving up to this target getting closer to this. And as for Rakuten Bank, as you know, on April 21, the company was listed on Tokyo Security Exchange on prime market. And the stock price since then is performing pretty well, and it's JPY 333.2 billion with the current market value as of May 11 in the Rakuten Group's ownership is getting closer to JPY 250 billion. And the Rakuten Bank, when we acquired Rakuten Bank, it was about 300,000 accounts. Now, it went up to 14 million and 9 million on the Bank and Securities accounts. And I think this is the power of Rakuten ecosystem and how can we achieve the same power in the Rakuten Mobile is one of the issues.

As you know, we have a challenging project in the mobile segment and so-called burden or the liability has to be reduced. And in order to do that, we are trying to have this disciplined financial policy IPO of the bank, the IPO potential of the Rakuten Securities and also investment -- minority investments where the strategic significance has already been achieved, then maybe we don't need to keep the capital there. In other words, exiting is one approach there.

And as you can see here, so the replacement of the first subordinated bond in the first call date is being considered. And also operational aspects includes continued growth in international or rather Internet Services and also the dividends and fees from the growing FinTech segment and also significantly reduced mobile CapEx is another aspect. And also the cost reduction of Rakuten Mobile will also push the revenue further up.

And as was already announced the SAI-KYO plan, it's been only a few hours since the announcement, but already applications are on the rise for that new plan, or actually the plans that we offer.

And finally, I'd like to present to you this vision and that is the midterm. For the first time I'm making this presentation, there are 3 parts, towards 2030, what are our visions the way forward? Starting with the Internet Services segment, revenue and operating income are both shown here. Revenue on a continuous basis, we will continue the current growth path. So 12% growth is being the target for maintaining that. And right now, 5.9%, there is a profit in some segments, but there are others where it's not so profitable but those are not profitable, we want to break even and have profit so that we can have operating income ratio of 50%.

If we can do that, then by 2030, operating income of JPY 410 billion will be possible. And 700 billion points or more have been issued already, and we need to make efficiency improvements with the points as well. As for FinTech, [ 40.8% ] is the operating income margin, but we want to increase that further to 60%, and we can have operating income of JPY 330 billion by making improvements. So together, operating income of JPY 740 billion to be realized by 2030 is what we are planning or targeting.

In addition, Rakuten Mobile profits or revenue will be added on top of that. We don't have precise numbers as to our targets, but B2C 24 million subscribers and B2B target 7 million subscribers are shown here. If we can realize them, then we can expect the profit to be even bigger in this segment of Mobile.

And finally, we have more than 200,000 workers at Rakuten and also JPY 30 trillion in the GSM or GTV rather. And therefore, we think that our social responsibility is getting larger as well. And therefore, we have to think about sustainability and carry out relevant measures for sustainability. For example, with regard to climate change or global warming as one topic. I think we are responsible for taking measures.

And there are 3 points here in our strategy and enhancing further the engaged employees enhancing their capabilities and quality. And second is sustainable platforms and services to be provided. And in green, global challenges to be addressed. So these are the 3 pillars of what we're trying to do.

So to be more specific, growing with our employees. As you know, Rakuten Group uses English as an official language and diversity, I think is one of the sources of our strengths. Of course, we are expecting AI to be quite significant going forward, but we need to have data scientists. And I think in the Japanese market, maybe Rakuten Group is the only one that have enough AI or data scientists. And therefore, diversity beyond national borders is something that is needed. And in various ways we need to be inclusive, welcoming different kinds of human resources so that, that can be translated into strength.

And the second aspect of providing sustainable platforms and services, basically, of course, we abide by the rules and regulations and pay due attention to privacy protection in conducting our business. And finally, addressing global challenges, basically greener, cleaner is what we are trying to realize. For our business foundation, we need to, of course, have the ethical business practices, information security and privacy as well as product and services quality been enhanced as well.

Now this is the 26th year of our company and towards year 2030, Rakuten Group will of course, address the Rakuten Mobile situation. 1.4% price increase is where we are. I think it is suppressed at that level. Still, you might think that it's high, but smartphones are very important, vital to people, dependable, high-quality smartphone services to be realized in Japan is what we're doing and also the technology that we're using are to be offered and sold to outside markets as well. So we are really carrying out such major projects.

Now this time, this new roaming agreement with our partner, KDDI, I think, is a major step forward. But I think that is the result of what we have strived to do on our own. I think it's the end result of the efforts that we have made so far.

With this, I'd like to conclude my initial presentation. Thank you.

[Unknown Executive]

This concludes our 2023 first quarter financial results presentation. Thank you very much.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you for joining our live question-and-answer session on the Rakuten Group 2023 first quarter financial results. We have the entire management team here ready to answer your question.

Please allow me to introduce them; Hiroshi Mikitani, Kenji Hirose, Kentaro Hyakuno, Tareq Amin, Kazuhiro Suzuki, Masayuki Hosaka, Kazunori Takeda. Now it is a Q&A session from the media and this Q&A session will be simultaneously translated into English and Japanese. [Operator Instructions] Okay. Then the first question, [indiscernible], you already raised your hands. Please ask your question.

[Unknown Analyst]

[indiscernible] speaking. And online one-click sign-up is quite epoch-making and it was surprising. And on the other hand, data communication, the contract is only the thing you can do this. And then you mentioned you will like to take action immediately, but looking at the current situation, what is the problem and why you cannot do that. And when you would like to achieve that, if you have any time line, please tell me?

[Unknown Executive]

So in the overseas market, well, mainly in European countries, eKYC. I think is [ Ishikawa-san ] you know there is no need of eKYC. However, in Japan, there is a guidance from the government for the voicing, you have to identify the customer before making a contract. But thinking about that, Rakuten Group, we have the Rakuten Bank and Rakuten Card and Rakuten Insurance and Rakuten Securities. We've already completed some of the personal identification beforehand. Therefore, to those areas, we would like to take advantage of those pre-checked KYC. That's how we've already adjusted.

And then interface, it to be developed. So probably 2 months, 2 months delay. I think we can start the same one-click registration for the voice. So talking about the one click, well, we've already started this approach that we -- those who have been identified beforehand, I think that's one of the uniqueness of the Rakuten ecosystem. So the data, well, we can start it in June. And then for other feature, maybe 2 months after, and we can start it 2 months later.

So please stay tuned and the 40 million people are visiting our site at Rakuten. And then there are people using the dual SIM. So first of all, the SAI-KYO plan and try our strongest network, and then you can join data for the first time and particularly from the iPhone, you will have many profiles and take advantage of that. And after that, and then you can move over to the voice, and that is our approach.

[Unknown Analyst]

Don't you think this is great?

[Unknown Executive]

Yes, it's epoch-making, and it is really surprising. Well, basically -- so conventionally, this industry is based on the SIM to protect their turf. So the physical SIM lock their customers into the physical SIM But our plan -- this plan is the strongest one. And then there are several hurdles and it is difficult to switch over or the KYC is something cumbersome, so we should get rid of all the cumbersome thing. That is the basic idea here.

Okay. So I see a hand, that's [ Ishino-san ] freelance, please?

[Unknown Analyst]

Thank you. It's Ishino, I'm a freelancer. A follow-on question. I think I used to only have voice in the past. Oh, it's disconnected. Again, freelancer Ishino. A related question. I think there used to be only voice, but data plan is being started and new. Is that a correct understanding? And this contract with KDDI Platinum Band scheduling and area plan, has -- is there going to be any changes to those plans and areas?

[Unknown Executive]

Okay. Data SIM. Well, basically, the price is the same, but you can try it out. For some people, there will be a trial sort of and then data SIM can be provided to those people. Therefore, as a package, it's unlimited. And as for the price plan, and that's actually the same. And if they want to use voice service as well, then once voice is available with 2 months or so time lag, then they can shift over to voice or switch over to that.

And as for roaming, as you can read here, Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka area, in the past, the Platinum Band owned by KDDI was not used by us except for indoors. But this time, we are going to leverage their Platinum Band in those major cities. And in addition, we have this partnership. Therefore, we will have flexible approaches taken within the framework of partnership, and so I think there needs to be a joint press release.

And for our acquisition of the Platinum Band, well, of course, we cannot make a decision on our own. There are things that cannot be controlled by us. But 700 megahertz or 800 to 900 megahertz band in the future, we would like to consider those -- both of those.

And as for cost, as you know, we are promoting use of the software. Therefore, Platinum Band introduced at a certain rate, hopefully -- and we think that it's not going to become too much of a burden in cost, okay?

[Operator]

Okay. Let's move to the next question from [indiscernible]. Over to you.

[Unknown Analyst]

[indiscernible] is speaking. Thank you very much for your explanation today.

The Seiyu holdings, you will be selling it to KKR, and you have agreed upon that and you have made announcement. And 2020 November, you announced the capital investment. In the short duration after that, what did you receive after this capital investment? I would like you to summarize.

And then about the selling price, it's JPY 22 billion. And then the booking value and the valuation comparing to booking value of valuation with this selling, did you receive a gain or loss? As much as possible, could you share the information about the -- understanding the ownership of the Seiyu stake?

[Kazunori Takeda, executive]

Takeda is speaking. So the add for the Seiyu case, 2020 November. Before making capital investment, we had some business relationship with them. But one thing is Netsuper and the second one is O2O. In the context of O2O, how much offline mechanism of the Seiyu can we introduce our digital IT and the system to their offline scheme and to track the customers' purchase behavior and other behavior or the producting. So when we need to come up with the future -- the strategy, and the first thing was to set up those kind of joint mechanisms together.

And then in the Rakuten payment, introduction of point or the card was made. And in the context of O2O, digital flyer execution was made and also unification of the customer ID was made. And as for the online super and the store type, we made it, and then we -- it was one of the top size in the industry. And given that we need to strengthen our business relationship, and then as for the -- that we are going to resolve the capital relationship with them.

So for the initial goal, we believe that we were able to achieve most of that. But in the coming future, and we will continue having the relationship with Seiyu, that is the direction.

For the second question, so cash-on-cash return, yes, it's positive. So book value was raised once, and this time, so -- performance base. So short term, mid-term, long-term return, is up to Seiyu's performance.

[Operator]

Next, freelancer [ Onishi-san ]. Please ask your question.

[Unknown Analyst]

[ Yasuki Onishi ] is my name, I'm a freelancer.

Now for mobile business, of course, 4G to 5G shift is going to happen gradually. Now this time, you have with KDDI the new roaming contract, including that 5G will become the main part in the future. Once that happens, the Rakuten Mobile's competitiveness. How do you see or expect that competitiveness to be when that happens? And what timing do you think 5G will be the major technology? In other words, when do you think this full shift happened? What is your expectation as to the timing? Two questions.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Well, first of all, I can ask on Tareq to fill in later. But 5G and 4G, actually the signals are signals, so the different kinds of signals are used for 4G and 5G. Now our strength is the signals, the radio wave signals, are converted to communication signals. We use software, whereas other carriers are using hardware. And so by upgrading software to hardware, given the current frequency band, we can actually convert from 4G to 5G. And having said that, of course, the frequency band is different. Therefore, the base stations' antennas need to be installed.

But to begin with, we were late in coming into this market. In other words, we already had 5G in mind in choosing the location for the base stations. So acquisition of new sites for the base stations is not really necessary, not much a necessity there. In other words, the existing 4G stations can actually install 5G antennas, and have the necessary equipment updating that. In other words, in additional cost, the cost structure there for the additional cost is quite different than other companies, and I think that is the benefit of the virtualized system.

So the timing you asked, well, one of the key hurdles would be the so-called SUB6 in Japan is -- this is not about Rakuten alone. It's true for other carriers as well. For example, we have to think about the interference issue with the broadcasters, and because of that, there has been quite a delay there. Especially in Tokyo or Kanto region, we have to reduce the power quite a bit. And in 2024, within 2024, that is to be resolved according to plan, and so things will change at that timing.

However, what we have to think about is the so-called Platinum Band, switching them to 5G. But actually, the performance itself may not or will not go up so dramatically. Overseas, low-band 5G is actually given a different name, and that's the plan. In case of Japan, because of the politicians and bureaucrats as well, I think, are -- well, they need to think about what is the 5G for? What are we doing this for? The display just changes from 4G to 5G, it's not meaningful if you just change what is shown on the display, so we really have to have this workable, realistic change. And we, of course, will shift to 5G.

And so the media hopefully, will understand that it is not meaningful or significant if we just changed the display showing 4G as a text to 5G. It has to have the significance there. And of course, I think we can deploy this technology at a lower cost.

[Tareq Amin, executive]

So I think Mickey really hit all the points.

I just want to emphasize one additional very, very important point. For Rakuten Mobile, this is not about new technology introduction. It is, for us, just a mere software upgrade to go from 4G to 5G. A lot different than the incumbents in Japan that have to do hardware swap, hardware replacement, cabinet replacement. So keep in mind that our CapEx investment is extremely low as we go to 5G, and the only really hardware that we have to install is just an antenna at the site, and the site has already been built. So it's a lot different, the migration path when you operate a software-centric network than a legacy infrastructure. And that's the main advantage that we have on our 5G program.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Touch upon the performance difference that we are doing in Germany and so forth.

[Tareq Amin, executive]

Yes. So aside from mobile in Japan, we obviously have deployed this technology for both 4G, 5G in Europe, in Germany and 1&1. And the advantages that we see are just significant in terms of not only throughput, latency, but also the operations, how many people you need to run this network. It is almost fully autonomous, hardly any people that are required to run and manage this network. We are hitting unprecedented reliability, capacity and scalability numbers because of the virtualization technologies that we have done.

So we are extremely confident that both in Japan, as well as globally, this will be the blueprint for future networks.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Yes. So it has not drawn too much attention. However, the software being used by Rakuten, of course, the CapEx can be reduced dramatically, but also scalability, 4G to 5G expansion or a switch, for one thing. But also in terms of operation, we can use AI quite a lot. Compared to that approach, hardware-based approach taken by other companies, I think of course, there will be discounts and so forth, but I think they need to make a major investment. I think that's the reality.

[Unknown Executive]

So it is almost time to close the first part, so let us take 2 more questions before closing the media Q&A.

And then NewsPicks, Hatani-san who raised hand, please. Over to you.

[Utai Hatani]

Hatani of NewsPicks is speaking. I have 2 questions, and the first one is about Rakuten Securities. The IPO timing and the bank was listed last month. So given that fact, so when will you be listing securities?

And the second one is on your slide, Page 19. And the Rakuten Mobile, it contributing to Rakuten ecosystem. Yes, I understand that. But from the user perspective or the communication, the speed stability with -- appreciated by 0.2%. So how do you see the customer satisfactions of results? And these are the 2 questions.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

So first of all, about the Rakuten Securities' IPO timing, I think we have not disclosed it. Well, we need to see various performances and choose the better timing and navigate. And the Mizuho Group own almost close to 20% of the stakes, so we need to talk to them and consult with them and then choose the best timing for IPO. It's not far future.

And the next one is the Rakuten Mobile network quality. Well, in the various context as mentioned earlier, there are 3 points. And the first one is, so outside of metropolitan area is the first one. And the second one, in subway, condition within the subway. And the third point is mentioned earlier, handover. In other words, so the switch from KDDI network to Rakuten network, these are the 3 major points. And all these 3 points, with the introduction of new roaming contracts, will be resolved. In other words, the Rakuten coverage, we have this Rakuten coverage. And if people live in this Rakuten coverage area, this is a great thing. And also if you use data beyond the 5 gigabyte and the performance, the slowdowns to 1 mega bps. And when we look into this and then when you can reach the 5 giga bps and it would slow down to 1 mega bps, there was a setting for that.

And most of the people continue using this maximum speed of 1 mega bps. If that is the case, then when they move to the KDDI roaming, they feel all the performance went down, so -- we call this [Indiscernible]. So we do not have this slow down anymore, therefore, we will we come to the same level as the other companies. And then the comparing the price range, I think we could be -- we will be able to become the strongest player here.

[Operator]

Okay. So from Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, Ono-san, please.

[Unknown Analyst]

Ono from Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, about the number of subscribers of the mobile services. As of the end of March, compared to last year -- last time's number, I think it has hit bottom, and it's on the rise. So frankly, what is your view on that or evaluation of that?

And from January, you have this full-fledged service, and so what do you see as the contribution made by that new service?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Okay. The graph that you see here, as you can see here. As for subscribers, yes, this is according to plan. Having said that, churn is happening and most of the people churn away from us because of the reason we have been talking about, connection or coverage. And so from June 1, there will be dramatic improvement on that, and so we're thinking that things will improve. And one quick activation or subscription or contract conclusion, I think, will be quite effective. And they will have an ecosystem impact, positive impact. And hopefully, we can double the pace of new subscriber acquisition to 2x or 3x what it is now.

And as for those who leave us, well actually, we would like to bring that rate to the level that is equivalent to other carriers.

[Unknown Executive]

This concludes the media Q&A session for the financial results meeting. Thank you to everyone for joining.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you for joining our live question-and-answer session on Rakuten Group's 2023 First Quarter Financial Results. We would like to open up the Q&A session for investors and analysts, and we have the entire management team here ready to answer your questions. Please allow me to introduce them. Hiroshi Mikitani, Kenji Hirose, Kentaro Hyakuno, Tareq Amin, Kazuhiro Suzuki, Masayuki Hosaka, Kazunori Takeda.

So let me explain about Q&A for today's session, and this Q&A session will be simultaneously translated into English and Japanese. But you need to select the language you like to hear in you audio feed from Zoom [Indiscernible] screen. Please do not select mute original audio [Operator Instructions]. The first question is from Neale.

[Neale Anderson, analyst]

Two questions, please.

The first is on the sales and marketing cost outlook in Rakuten Mobile. Does the launch of the new tariff for the roaming agreement change, how you're going to approach the rest of the year from a marketing perspective?

The second one is probably for Tareq. I appreciate the update on Symphony and closing the RAN feature gap in brownfields. There's a lot of data points on those slides. If you have to nominate one thing that has slowed the uptake of Open RAN in existing operators, which would that be? Because I think companies like Vodafone and Telefonica, they've been keen on open RAN, but the deployment has been quite slow.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Neale, thank you for the question. We have been shifting towards more Internet marketing and also [default] marketing. And obviously, this new cycle plan is very, very powerful, and we have already started to see uplift. Although it's several hours since we made an announcement, we're already seeing very positive application uplift since we announced this.

And so I think our goal this year is -- primarily is the -- really, 2 things is the top, top priority. One is definitely reduce our fixed cost as much as possible, so we have already reduced our headcount significantly for Rakuten Mobile, and second is to really create robust coverage, which we have really got it down with this new roaming agreement.

So -- and then with regard to the marketing, I think as we announced, there's 2 keys. One is this one-click application and activation. I tried it already. It's like unbelievably smooth. With just one click, and you can activate it. So we're going to start with the data SIM because data SIM does not require KYC, Know Your Customer process. But we have a huge advantage, which is we already have tens of millions of people who already posted their licensed -- driver's license copy, passport copy, My Number and so forth. For those people, we can basically utilize these records and basically bypass KYC process, which other carriers cannot do. And people who have already log in with Rakuten ID and have registered credit card, if they want to just try Rakuten Mobile with one click literally within a few minutes, your iPhone, Android phone, if you have eSIM, will be activated.

This is a revolution, and we believe we want to see how much uplift we are going to make. Our goal is to basically double or triple our applications. At the same time, this coverage improvement will substantially improve our churn rate, we believe. So that's what we are going to do when we do not -- we intend to do a massive marketing at this point.

Did I answer your question?

[Neale Anderson, analyst]

Yes.

[Tareq Amin, executive]

On the Open RAN for brownfield, let me just shed a couple of important items. The challenges that we see, and we see it not because we're managing brownfield deployment through labs and POCs, but through real commercial deployment. And the learnings revolve around 2 big problem statements that we've been focused on for the last 14 months to fix. Number one is the lack of hardware availability to support a diversity of spectrum bands that legacy or brownfield operator has. So most mobile operators would require a need to consolidate electronics at their site. So they would need not only single remote radio hits, but they might need dual band, tri-band, high power to meet a variety of spectrum bands. So to find this ecosystem wasn't easy, it was not trivial. And within Rakuten Symphony, I would always say we would love to create reference design, but it's not our business model to really be the creator of hardware. That's really important for us to be vigilant around our software journey and path.

And then number 2 is on the software features. So there are a good number of software features that we spend a lot of energy on time to ensure that not only we're meeting the quality and reliability of existing legacy incumbents, but in certain cases, even surpass those reliability and quality. And those features are primarily, like I look at into 3 buckets.

Number 1 is the carrier aggregation combination. So to go not just only 2 carrier aggregation to support 3, 4 carrier aggregation in both downlink and also uplink combination, that took a substantial amount of energy. But that, we're almost done and completed through the support of [CI features]. CATM mobility features was not trivial to support. This is almost like creating a new protocol of software features that FlexRAN just doesn't necessarily have, and in fact, that's what we innovated. We used a portion of the FlexRAN, but most of the code base is really all developed by Rakuten Symphony. And then management layers for all these bands, which is if you are a user device terminal, which band you camp on, the traffic management of this. Those are also not trivial to do this in real time.

So this is the 2 things I would focus on, and we're really, really close. This is a 14-month journey for us to take all the code base that we build in Japan and now advance to it all the brownfield and feature parity that is needed for legacy operator. But those are really the facts that we see on the ground to meet the deployment for brownfield.

[Operator]

Okay. I see a hand from CLSA, Mr. Oliver Matthew.

[Oliver Matthew, analyst]

I have a few questions. First question, just on this eSIM thing. How many people currently in Japan do we think have phones enabled to take advantage of the one click activation?

[Tareq Amin, executive]

So the good news in Japan is this market is really dominated by iPhone. And as you know, all the new iPhone series today, they're all come pre-equipped, pre-provisioned with eSIM capable. Not just only one by the way, there is a multiple of profiles you could support an eSIM. So north of 50% of market share already, all devices support eSIM.

Rakuten Mobile-owned devices, part of our original commitment when we obtained our spectrum, that we wanted to drive 100% eSIM capable devices. Mickey talked about this in his presentation that we don't want our customers to be locked to physical SIMs, so 100% of all of Rakuten Mobile devices are supportive of eSIM. And as we see now in the Android ecosystem, we see that all new devices also -- north of 70% of Android devices coming to the market also are eSIM capable. We think this is the trend, frankly speaking, so I would not be surprised that we'll see close to even 100% of eSIM both in Android and iOS ecosystem. But at least we know iOS has a robust eSIM-capable ecosystem that's already been deployed in Japan.

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. So thank you for asking. We understand some of these old hardware is not supporting the eSIM capability. But upcoming at least new devices, both for iPhone and Android, is supporting the eSIM capability. So I mean, since iPhone 8, 9? Okay. Yes, since iPhone [indiscernible], iPhone is supporting eSIM at least.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Yes. And also to enable this, we have 2 steps, right? One is, we need to have a credit card information. But since shopping, travel and so forth, the majority of logged in users, we have their credit card number. So they don't need to re-register a credit card number, and the people who have already uploaded their license -- driver's license copies and so forth to Rakuten Group services, then we are talking about almost 20 million or 30 million people. They don't -- even if they want to use voice SIM, it's going to take a couple of months, but they don't even need to reapproach with their...

And then for not only just eSIM, eKYC, but basically eMNP that moving from SoftBank, KDDI, DOCOMO to us is going to be just one stop. So it's huge.

[Oliver Matthew, analyst]

So your tactic will be too focused on those people you have the right information and then they have the right phones, so it should be very cost-effective to convert them to Rakuten Mobile than before?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Yes. I think for people who want to just try Rakuten Mobile, they can do this in maybe one minute.

[Oliver Matthew, analyst]

Okay. Great. Second question is more big picture. The rise of AI recently seems to favor companies who have a very deep data, proprietary data, and I know Rakuten has a lot of proprietary data. Could you talk a little bit big picture, how you see those AI tools helping on the personalization of marketing and how it might impact your ability to cross-sell Rakuten services in the future?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Well, obviously, this is huge, right? I think operationally and marketing wise, is going to be huge and user experience will evolve quite significantly.

I think we are the only company in the world which has the biggest credit card company in the country, biggest bank, one of the biggest brokerage firm, biggest e-commerce company, biggest travel agency and plus the many, many behavioral data, one of the biggest ad platform in the country. And so when I spoke with my old friend, Sam Altman, he knows us, and I think it is going to be a tremendous opportunity. Having said that, I don't know. This is very early stage. Of course, OpenAI, the Agile, Google, even Amazon can potentially become our partner, and at the same time, we are also developing our own AI. It can be hybrid and so forth.

But the most important thing is that we have to -- you have to think in 2 layers, right? One is a kind of experimental that you come, you ask what -- where you want to go, where you going to buy, and then the transactional layer. So the strength of Rakuten is we have membership locked in. So even you search on Google, basically use OpenAI to search what kind of a product you want to buy, they will come to Rakuten because they are the member of Rakuten. They have Rakuten Super Points, they have Rakuten card. So our strength is that, of course, entry point is very important. But more than that transaction layer, basically, we dominate.

So that's a strength of Rakuten ecosystem. It's not just one-time come and buy. It's about, you use Rakuten Card, you use Rakuten Bank, you use Rakuten Mobile, you use Rakuten Ichiba, you use Rakuten Travel. So maybe they will defer by some AI, but they will come and buy from us, travel with us, use Rakuten Card, use Rakuten Pay, which I think we're going to catch up against PayPay so soon. So that's our advantage.

So 2 of the questions. Who is going to benefit? Transaction layer is going to be a huge benefit, obviously. And then this user experience, UX layer, definitely this is going to evolve, and we can partner with multiple players with exclusivity with someone and we are talking with them. At the same time, our AI engineers are developing our own algorithm.

[Oliver Matthew, analyst]

Great. Sorry, could I just clarify, you mentioned the Rakuten Pay against PayPay? Could you give us some context where you are and how you will compete with them?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Well, I think Rakuten Super Points point partnership, and we are going to combine all the payment. And for the location wise, we already caught up against them.

User base, I think we are catching up dramatically. We are getting close. And since they have announced very exclusive strategy, I think we have opportunity of the window to catch up against them. So we are very excited.

But given the strength of our point program, Rakuten points, you can pay with the point, and we're going to march Rakuten Point program and Rakuten Pay, already is kind of into one app, Rakuten Card, Rakuten Edy, it is going to be integrated. So I think it's just no reason to switch.

[Oliver Matthew, analyst]

Okay. I do notice when I shop in Tokyo, I'm often asked if I have a Rakuten Point Card, so I was wondering how that can be integrated into the payment in the future. So the idea is that one app...

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Yes. please download Rakuten Pay app. And then in that tab, we have Rakuten Point, too. So Rakuten Pay app and Rakuten Point app will be integrated.

[Operator]

And move on to the next question from JPMorgan Asset Management, [ Rajesh ].

Sorry. Let's move on to the next question from BofA Securities, Nagao-san.

[Yoshitaka Nagao, analyst]

So BofA Securities, Nagao, is speaking. I have 2 questions and most of them are related to mobile.

And the first question is Mikitani-san's presentation on Page 47, the net increase on a daily basis, I think there is a data related to that. And on top of that graph, as of May 10, JPY 4.65 million. And then I think you are -- your number is increasing here, but it says B2B in parenthesis. And how much B2B is part of this? And then you will see some benefit of SAI-KYO plan introduction. So the net increase in momentum, will it become stronger? Is it how I should view? And could you share your idea? That is my first question.

And the second question is, this is a more conceptual question. On your Page 39, as for SAI-KYO plan, so the Rakuten mobile network ecosystem strength is efficient and effective way of developing the network, and you can process the large amount of traffic in a productive way. So I think in that context, you can leverage the strength of your network. And then I believe having your own network is your strength, but now you renewed your contract, roaming contract, with KDDI as your partner, and maybe this will hinder your mid- to long-term benefit. In the short term, yes, the customers' convenience would increase and it will control the cost. But when it comes to the mid- to long-term viewpoint, how long can you use this plan? These are the second questions.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

In the first one, the business contract, yes, it's performing well, and we do not disclose the number. But the problem here is the B2B contract. Although they have a contract, but activation takes long because they have their previous B2B and they need to switch over from the old to new one. And also it's -- unlike B2C, they don't use the network from the next day. So we've acquired, but this will be increasing as we move forward. So the B2B is part of this, but it's not the big portion today.

Having said that, so this B2B contract, it's performing pretty well. And I will ask Suzuki to explain this, and the Link Desktop version will bring a big benefit. So one phone number, you can take it with your smartphone device and also with PC, regardless of the place you are at, office or home and the iOS beta version. And still, many people use SMS service and line is not preferred in business use case. If that is the case, so using SMS, sending, receiving SMS on PC and the maybe conference call will be possible on this desktop in the future as feature is upgraded. So I think this will become a powerful weapon to us. And so we have 900,000 of companies dealing with us.

Suzuki-san, could you complement my comment?

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. So B2B business. So the number of lines or network, we cannot mention in detail, but giving you the number of companies. As of January end, we launched a service and more than 1,700 companies made a contract with us. So in 3 months, they have 1,700 companies. I think this is a good number in the 3 months, but we are not satisfied with this level. In case of the B2B customer, as I mentioned earlier, so the after application, but the setting or the setting the configuration or switching over or timing of the financial closing, activation takes long. That's all from me.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

And to your second question, about the KDDI roaming, how will it be affecting in our future path? Well, this is about capital efficiency. That is the main reason. So already, 96% of the traffic is using our native network. And the roaming is 4%. And this 4%, if we want to manage everything by ourselves, it requires additional JPY 300 billion -- JPY 30 million, and then the migration to the 5G.

And as for the bandwidth, we still have some buffer. But looking at the global trend to share the network, it will become more popular. Previously, everything to be done alone. So in the depopulated area and having the 4 antenna or connectivity just increased the cost. At the end of the day that will be reflected upon to the price, so we will have this deal. But as we move forward, I don't know what combination would be possible. So less population area, I think one option is to share the network or use the asset together. So the combination of a competitor and the corporations or competitor is the form that we will pursue. And I think this is a great positiveness to us and to the KDDI, the leverage of the asset, I think this is a positive. So it's a win-win.

So the traffic volume, if it grows drastically or largely. In such a case, I think we need to develop our own network. In such a case, it's not this Platinum Band in 5G subjects. So 100 megahertz or 200 megahertz, the bandwidth that we will be using in such a case.

[Operator]

We have limited time, so we would like to accept -- Excuse me.

Well, thank you very much. In the interest of time, the questions from the -- I would like to close this question-and-answer session with the analysts and investors, or rather -- just a moment. Maybe one more.

We have limited time, but next will be the final question we accept from the analysts and investors, Ms. [Fujimoto].

[Unknown Analyst]

Credit Researcher of JPMorgan Research, my name is [Fujimoto].

I would like to ask a question about funding of the nonfinancial business. Looking at the cash flow, the short-term borrowing is down. The commercial paper is down as well, a little less than JPY 100 billion. And for long-term borrowing, I think that you are borrowing as much as you can repay, however, I think our repayment is bigger than the borrowed amount. And so the reduction of borrow demand, I think is actually -- the gap is covered by the corporate bonds. And therefore, how do you plan on -- or what was the reason for having this kind of a funding? Has there been any major changes in the capital procurement? Because when you think about, I think the cost would be much lower domestically. But actually, do you think the banks will continue to support you as they have done in the past? Have you already agreed on the way forward?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

With regard to our relations with the banks, yes, we have a very good, supportive arrangement relationship with them. And for corporate bonds, retail and overseas, of course, we are accessing different markets, and we have done that for flexibility.

And as for short-term borrowing, of course, corporate bonds is used. Of course, we have to repay. And as for mobile-related capital investments, we have procured or have done a more stable, long-term funding. So gross debt will not be increased going forward, but we will have a steady funding financing so that we can actually bring our financial situation to a more stabilized status. So that is our policy.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. So the rollover from the banks for this fiscal year will likely to be realized. Is that a correct expectation?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Yes, you can expect that to happen.

Well, overall, Rakuten Mobile is a major historical project, and we are overcoming various difficulties and challenges that we have come thus far. And the target, there are 3 things that we want to achieve. And in addition, the organizational structure or the business portfolio that I have presented today. When you think about the values of each, Rakuten Bank, for example, we have done IPO, but there are many other things that can be realized from here on. And therefore, we want to be flexible in actually taking necessary measures so that we can have a more sound balance sheet, and the Seiyu divestiture is one such action taken. And so we are thinking strategically, we are successful in strategic measures in some ways.

And in the future, of course, excess cash can we think be generated in the future as well. And Rakuten Mobile investment in the capital -- CapEx of JPY 300 billion is the amount that we can reduce and also cost can be stabilized as well. And as for the number of subscribers and also B2B customers increase, the executives at the banks and the people at the banks that are responsible have shown they're understanding to a certain degree. That's my understanding of the situation.

[Operator]

And this concludes Q&A session from investors and analysts.

Before closing the session, we ask Mikitani-san to make the closing comment.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

I thought this is the end. Sorry.

Well, the announcement of SAI-KYO plan is a big thing, so it has a business meaning, and also from the society perspective for context. So the paying too much on communications fee, that is more understood by the consumers. I think the recognition level went up. And then one of the hurdles in these days is for some areas, you cannot connect. But this will be almost resolved as of June 1. And then looking at the SNS feedback, we received a lot of feedback comment or post. And just a few hours, we received positive feedback in SNS, and this is very innovative and try to change the definition. So of course, there is a big risk, but the -- we have been clearing the challenges based on adjustment coordination. So analysts, please change your phone to Rakuten mobile network, and you can do that after June 1, if you like. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you very much, and this concludes Rakuten Group 2023 Q1 Financial Results Briefing. Thank you.