Rakuten Group Inc

TSE:4755

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q4

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Hello, and welcome to Rakuten's Fourth Quarter and 2021 Fiscal Year Financial Results Presentation. First, let's take a look at consolidated results. Here are the key KPIs from 2021. Global GTV reached JPY 26.9 trillion, with 20% year-on-year growth. Domestic e-commerce GMS surpassed JPY 5 trillion. The global membership base is now 1.6 billion members, including over 100 million in Japan. Consolidated revenue hit JPY 1.7 trillion, up 15.5% year-on-year. Rakuten Card has issued 25 million cards, and Rakuten Card shopping GTV reached JPY 14.5 trillion with a 25% year-on-year increase. In January this year, Rakuten Bank achieved 12 million accounts.

In domestic e-commerce, NPS has improved due to more sophisticated logistics functions and UX improvement. As a result, revenue rose 18% and operating income rose 38% year-on-year.

FinTech is progressing well, our customer base expanding along with cross-uses of our services. And revenue and operating income continue to increase.

Turning to our mobile business. With the deployment of fully virtualized technology, our cost-competitive mobile network has expanded. In Japan, we achieved 96% population coverage in February, 4 years ahead of schedule, and our network will continue to expand. Roaming costs are expected to decrease significantly going forward as well. Subscribers have now surpassed 5.5 million. As network coverage expands, we will be able to accelerate subscriber acquisition.

Group synergies centered on mobile are also steadily progressing. We are building our presence as an industry leader. Rakuten Mobile's technology has received many awards from research organizations. We are the only end-to-end, fully virtualized network in commercial operation.

In 2021, we won very large orders from various telecom companies. Going forward, we anticipate an improvement in profitability in the mobile business after the second quarter of 2022. We improved the quality of RCP, Rakuten Communication Platform, through the Japanese MNO business using it as the evidence and showcase to sell our software, hardware and our cloud platform. These proceeds will enable us to further invest into the mobile network buildout.

Next is global expansion of Rakuten Symphony. Building on our domestic success, our worldwide scale opens up huge business opportunities. These profits will also make it possible to further strengthen the domestic network and acquire more customers.

In addition to increase the subscriber numbers and ARPU, we aim to strengthen the mobile business' status as a pillar of Rakuten Ecosystem and maximize the synergy with e-commerce.

One of the final highlights of 2021, Rakuten Group, Inc. has achieved 100% renewable energy utilization 4 years ahead of original schedule. In 2022, we established a new department dedicated to achieving carbon neutrality and strengthening our sustainability initiative further.

Please take a look at this chart. Consolidated revenue has been rapidly growing continuously. Revenue has reached JPY 1.7 trillion with 15.5% year-on-year growth. Here is a segment-by-segment performance breakdown. In the Internet Services segment, revenue increased 14.7% year-on-year to JPY 1 trillion, and operating income increased by 166.2% year-on-year to JPY 107.5 billion. In the FinTech segment, revenue grew 7.4% year-on-year to JPY 619 billion, and operating income grew 9.6% year-on-year to JPY 89.1 billion. In mobile segment, we have been proactively investing in future growth and recorded an operating loss. As a result, consolidated revenue was JPY 1.7 trillion, but non-GAAP operating loss was JPY 225 billion.

Now let's dive into more details for each business. Let's start with our Internet Services. Domestic e-commerce GMS expanded during the pandemic and surpassed JPY 5 trillion in 2021. The interval between each JPY 1 trillion milestone have been getting shorter and shorter. Our next target is JPY 10 trillion.

We are enhancing synergy effects. As you can see here, cross-use between Rakuten Ichiba and each of our e-commerce services is also increasing rapidly. At Rakuten Ichiba, the retention of users has progressed, enabling an increase in profits. E-commerce revenue grew 18.1% year-on-year. Operating income grew 37.7% year-on-year to JPY 74.2 billion. JP Rakuten Logistics has taken over Rakuten's logistics activities, accelerating improvements in service quality and profitability.

In Other Internet Services, Rakuten Rewards and the Sports business are improving, and Viber's operating income increased, resulting in a significant improvement in profitability.

Here is a trend in non-GAAP operating income for the overseas business, Rakuten Kobo, Viber and Viki. Thanks to the growth in ad revenue, cost reductions and other measures, these businesses have begun to drive profitability. Rakuten Rewards has (sic) [ was ] heavily affected by the pandemic in the previous year but showed significant recovery in 2021.

Next, let's look at the ads business. The ad business saw a significant increase in revenue with 22% year-on-year growth to reach JPY 157.9 billion. Sales of online advertising to major consumer goods manufacturers increased significantly, up 35.1% year-on-year.

Moving to the performance of our FinTech business. Revenue and operating income continue to increase as each service continues to grow and become the main account for more customers. Rakuten Payment revenue increased by nearly 20% year-on-year, keeping annual losses down to about JPY 4.1 billion while our competitors are making significant losses.

Let's look at the performance of each business. In addition to the strong acquisition of credit card members, Rakuten Card shopping GTV increased significantly with 25.3% year-on-year growth. Next is Rakuten Bank. Rakuten Bank is securing higher revenue and profits by significantly increasing service profits. Rakuten Bank is preparing for an IPO. We believe that through an IPO, Rakuten Bank can benefit from an equity increase and thus focus more on its growth strategy and further contribute to the Rakuten Ecosystem.

Here is the performance of Rakuten Securities. Driven by the domestic and U.S. equities, operating revenue continued to grow at a high rate of over 20% year-on-year. The number of new accounts is growing at unparalleled speed in the industry, and we are on track to become #1 in terms of customers.

Now for the insurance business. Revenue for general insurance decreased due to the optimization of underwriting standards. Operating income increased for the insurance business as a whole due to improvements in the underwriting income and cost reductions. By changing our insurance product portfolio, we expect revenue and profit to increase in the future.

We have built one of the most comprehensive FinTech ecosystems by promoting cross-use of our services with Rakuten Card as the entry point. Our unique FinTech ecosystem contributes to the expansion of the customer base, profit growth and growth of Rakuten Group as a whole.

And now on to mobile. The third-party reports and other analysis have confirmed the cost advantages of Rakuten Mobile's virtualized network. Capital investment and operating costs are 30% to 40% lower than legacy technology. Recently, we achieved 96% population coverage 4 years ahead of schedule. Having started commercial service only 2 years ago, this speed is truly astonishing. This is a result of the cooperation of all of the people and companies involved as well as hard work done on site in the field.

By expanding our own network, we will further reduce roaming areas and reduce roaming cost. Due to the cost reduction efforts and increase in paying customers, from the second quarter, earnings should start to improve, and we aim to return to profitability in a short period of time, which would be unprecedented in the history of mobile industry. We are confident that the future contribution to earnings will be extremely large.

Meantime, the combined numbers of MNO and MVNO subscribers reached 5.5 million. The number of new subscribers is steadily increasing as Rakuten's own network area expands. We expect the mobile business to be a driver of further accelerated growth for our ecosystem. Compared to the acquisition of Rakuten Card members, in its first few years, the acquisition rate of Rakuten mobile subscribers is more than 3x faster.

Now let me talk about Rakuten's unique ecosystem, which is our biggest strength. 2021 represented a further evolution in ecosystem expansion. Data is core to our ecosystem. Rakuten possesses one of the largest data sets in Japan, both online and off-line based on more than 100 million user IDs. Furthermore, by adding data from Rakuten mobile users, the range and depth of data is increasing, which will be a source of further competitive advantage.

Rakuten Mobile has contributed even more to the ecosystem than we originally anticipated. Rakuten mobile subscribers spend 1.7x more on Ichiba, our e-commerce marketplace, comparing 1 year before and 1 year after signing up. In addition to improving the lifetime value of members who use Rakuten Mobile, these synergy effects are increasing membership value of the entire Rakuten Group.

Rakuten expanded its ecosystem through alliances with strategic partners such as Japan Post, Walmart and Gurunavi. Rakuten Group aims to capture an increasing share of Japan's total national consumption of JPY 352 trillion. To that end, we are developing our online and off-line services and positioning the mobile business at the core of these services.

Let's move on to talk about our growth strategy. The key theme in 2022, the 25th year since Rakuten's founding, is tech and green. Our technology-related operations employ roughly 5,900 engineers around the world. We are expanding globally, including our hubs in Asia, Japan, China and India as well as Europe and the U.S.

Sustainability is in Rakuten's DNA. We are committed to the world's effort to mitigate climate change and aim to adopt 100% renewable electricity for all our services. We will work with our business partners and consumers to push forward our goal, and we invite all our stakeholders to join this effort.

Rakuten Mobile has won numerous global awards, being recognized for the quality of its network. In addition, Rakuten Mobile has been highly evaluated in multiple categories in recent third-party OpenSignal reports.

Rakuten Symphony has developed and keep developing its own software portfolio to support deployment of the industry's only end-to-end, fully virtual network technology in markets around the world. The product portfolio is already 80% complete. Symphony will be leading the industry with further upgraded capabilities. Building on the large-scale project in Germany in 2021, we aim to increase the overall profitability of the mobile business by accelerating the deployment of Rakuten Symphony.

2022 marks the 25th anniversary of the Rakuten Group. Let's keep working together. We will strive to increase our corporate and stakeholder value by evolving Rakuten Ecosystem, achieving sustainable growth and working together with all our stakeholders.

[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Fukuyama, analyst]

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[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

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[Kenji Hirose, executive]

This is the earning results for the fourth quarter. Revenue grew by double digit year-on-year, thanks to the strong growth of domestic e-commerce and increased revenue in all segments, including FinTech and Mobile. Non-GAAP operating loss expanded due to an increase in depreciation expense and network-related costs in the mobile business as well as reduced revenue for the travel business, which did not have the Go To campaign this year. In the same period, non-GAAP operating income at Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten Card and other core business showed a strong increase.

This is a waterfall chart of non-GAAP operating income. Profit growth in domestic e-commerce and FinTech drove overall performance. For Rakuten Ichiba, user retention steadily progressed. In FinTech, all businesses showed profit growth. In the mobile segment, losses expanded again due to upfront investments, but base station construction has progressed, and 4G population coverage finally reached 96% earlier this month. We expect mobile business performance to improve from the second quarter of this year.

Operating income of Other Internet Services excluding investment gains or losses continue to improve. Cost reductions were achieved through business focus and selection. In addition, Sports businesses, negatively affected by the pandemic, saw some recovery and contributed to the bottom line.

In the overseas businesses, Rakuten Rewards have seen a strong return to profit generation, and Viber is now in a position to drive stable profits. In the fourth quarter of 2021, some businesses in the Internet Service segment were transferred from Other Internet Service to domestic e-commerce. We have made retroactive adjustments accordingly.

Now I will cover the diversification of our financing. We have flexibility to carry out a diverse array of fund procurement as we continue to make upfront investment in the mobile businesses. Example include equity raising through a third-party allotment; debt financing, including perpetual subordinated bonds; and monetization of our own assets.

More recently, in December 2021, we issued JPY 300 billion of domestic bonds, which will also be mostly allocated to the mobile business. In addition, with potential external capital and partnership at Rakuten Symphony and IPO preparations for Rakuten Bank, the financial base of the entire group will be enhanced and autonomous growth of Rakuten Ecosystem can accelerate.

CapEx in the mobile business has been partially delayed due to the shortage of semiconductors. The amount of capital investment in 2022 is expected to be at the same level as 2021. On the other hand, 4G population coverage has reached 96% due to the acceleration of capital investment. So CapEx is expected to be in a steady state from 2023.

Consolidated total assets are expanding with rapid growth at Rakuten Bank and other FinTech businesses. In 2021, the capital adequacy ratio improved due to the third-party share allotment. In 2022, we aim for the consolidated capital adequacy ratio to remain at the same level as 2021. In addition, from 2023 onwards, we believe that the ratio will increase as the performance of the mobile business improves.

Let's move on to what I see as Rakuten's value by segment. First, regarding domestic e-commerce, looking at the 5-year CAGR of revenue and EBITDA ratio, the variation of our businesses according to the market consensus seems to be well below the trend line. In the future, we aim to further grow our businesses and enhance our disclosure to gain the understanding of the market.

Here is Rakuten's FinTech valuation. Considering 5 years revenue CAGR and PE ratio, Rakuten is well undervalued versus other global and domestic peers. We will promote the strengths of the FinTech ecosystem and its growth potential backed by our competitiveness.

Rakuten Mobile seems to be one of the key factor for discounting our valuation. We aim to make the mobile businesses, including Rakuten Symphony, a major pillar and profit source in the future. As you can see, Amazon also had a hard time to proving that their business model could be successful. Looking at Amazon stock price trends, it can be said that the business model was proved along with the monetization of the AWS businesses, and the stock price rose significantly. In our mobile businesses as well, we will continue to focus on monetization and to prove the effectiveness of the business model.

Rakuten Group membership value consists of active users, cross-use, LTV and CAC. ARPU and retention rate are used to calculate LTV. In Rakuten Ichiba, the number of reactivated users increased in 2020 due to the pandemic, and the retention rate was pushed up. This resulted in an increase in LTV and boosted membership value.

Despite the reactionary decline from the previous year, membership value in the fourth quarter of 2021 expanded with a 2-year CAGR of 8%, so the growth trend is continuing. Rakuten Group will continue to aim to increase membership value and corporate value by expanding our ecosystem.

[Kazunori Takeda, executive]

In 2021, domestic e-commerce GMS surpassed JPY 5 trillion. The rate at which each JPY 1 trillion milestone is achieved is accelerating year-by-year. Even after factoring in the significant growth we saw in 2020 due to demand arising from stay-at-home trends, we continued to see strong growth in 2021. This shows that synergies within the Rakuten Ecosystem are being effectively nurtured. Our next goal is to achieve JPY 10 trillion in annual domestic e-commerce GMS.

In the fourth quarter, domestic e-commerce GMS expanded steadily despite the impact of the previous year's stay-at-home consumption trend and the Go To travel campaign. We achieved double-digit growth in annual GMS, which continues to show strong growth.

Shopping e-commerce GMS achieved double-digit growth in 2021 despite already achieving significant growth in 2020. Rakuten users have become more highly engaged with our services, so we have been able to maintain high growth rates even after a long period of say-at-home consumption.

Here is our revenues and operating income. Despite the high hurdle presented by the previous year's Go To travel campaign, due to the continued growth of our e-commerce business centered on Rakuten Ichiba, both revenue and operating income expanded steadily.

Here is a waterfall chart showing our operating income. Rakuten Travel was affected by the previous year's Go To travel campaign, while user retention has steadily progressed for Rakuten Ichiba, leading to increased operating income. In the logistics business, we established JP Rakuten Logistics with Japan Post in July 2021 and succeeded the logistics business operated by Rakuten to the joint venture. This resulted in improved service quality and profitability.

E-commerce has expanded significantly since 2020. We are not only growing each businesses but also expanding cross-use and aiming for further growth. We aim to expand the Rakuten Ecosystem by promoting users' cross-use from 4 approaches: point-driven, customer demographic, vertical cross-use and regional initiatives. This creates synergies between e-commerce services and other businesses.

Due to cross-use promotion measures and the growth of Rakuten Ichiba, the number of customer cross-using Rakuten Ichiba and each e-commerce services is steadily increasing. We will continue to focus on expanding cross-use and aim to maximize the lifetime value of our users.

Last year in November, as the first step in our effort to improve user convenience and delivery efficiency, we launched the Omatome delivery app. Users can now combine delivery items ordered from multiple Rakuten Ichiba merchants for packages delivered by Japan Post. Through this collaboration with Japan Post, we aim to improve customer satisfaction and reduce delivery vehicles' CO2 emissions.

In addition, Rakuten Travel has recovered steadily compared to 2019. And the total number of overnight guests turned to positive growth, especially in Q4 '21. Also, we have started offering travel coupons as a thank-you gift for participants of the hometown tax program in Japan.

The number of eligible local governments and accommodation facility is increasing, and the number of participating users is increasing. We believe that this is one of the initiatives that will drive growth as travel demand is positioned to recover in the near future.

[Masayuki Hosaka, executive]

The FinTech segment achieved higher revenue and profit compared to last year as the customer base expanded and usage as a main service increased for each services. Rakuten Card secured an increase in profit led by the strong acquisition of members and an increase in transaction value due to the recovery in off-line consumption. The customer base continued to expand strongly, with Rakuten Bank surpassing 12 million accounts in January 2022 and Rakuten Securities accounts surpassing 7 million.

For Rakuten Card, the number of card issued surpassed 25 million and the number of second Rakuten Card also reached 1 million just 7 months after the full-scale launch last June. Rakuten Card has announced our next goal of achieving the Triple 3, and we are on track for all 3 targets.

For shopping gross transaction value, we continue to outperform the industry by maintaining positive growth even during the pandemic. The annual transaction value growth rate in 2021 was over 25%, recovering to pre-pandemic levels. In addition, with the increased popularity of buy now, pay later, the number of customers using installment payment for Rakuten Card has increased, and the amount of installment payment value had more than tripled compared to 2017.

At Rakuten Bank, the number of payroll accounts increased by 55.4%, and the number of payment transaction increased by 17.4% compared to the same period last year. Many customers are using Rakuten Bank as their main account for daily life.

The profile of a new account holder at Rakuten Securities is diversifying. One noteworthy trend is the increasing percentage of women customers reaching nearly half now. And due to the expansion of the asset building business, the number of new account openers in their 30s or younger, which was about half in 2016, has increased to nearly 70% in 2021. In addition, many investment newcomers are also choosing Rakuten Securities.

Both Rakuten Life and Rakuten General Insurance are doing well, led by Internet sales in particular. In fact, Rakuten General Insurance's online sales of automobile insurance have made great progress, thanks to the benefit of website improvements, increased online discount rates and attracting customers from the Rakuten Ecosystem.

The Rakuten Pay app, which is an integrated app that contained various payment services, continue to be a strong touch point for customers, being used in many daily situations. For example, the amount of Rakuten Cash added through the app increased by 146% in 2021.

FinTech is enhancing cross-use by strengthening cooperation among companies and providing highly convenient services for customers. In the near future, in addition to Rakuten Card and Rakuten Points, we plan to add Rakuten Cash as a new payment option for Rakuten Securities investment trusts. As a result of these strengthened collaborations, cross-use is steadily expanding, and the number of customer using all 3, Rakuten Card, Rakuten Bank and Rakuten Securities, increased by 89% year-on-year.

The FinTech segment will continue to promote cross-use of FinTech services with Rakuten Card at the point of entry and contribute to the expansion of the customer base and the profit base of each FinTech company, which leads to the growth of the Rakuten Group.

[Yoshihisa Yamada, executive]

This month, we were delighted to announce that Rakuten Mobile's 4G population coverage reached 96%. Compared to the original plan submitted to the MIC, the industry regulator, this was about 4 years ahead of schedule. This achievement is the result of fully virtualized mobile technology, close work with our partners and the collective efforts of the Rakuten Group.

In addition to outdoor base stations, we utilize various products such as small cells, femtocells that correspond to different areas and use cases, and we built one of the world's largest OpenRAN networks with a total of more than 200,000 cells. This guarantees capacity and speed required by our customers.

With the expansion of coverage, usage of Rakuten's network continues to increase. The number of MNO subscribers is steadily increasing even without aggressive marketing and campaigns. This month, the number of subscribers of MNO and MVNO combined exceeded 5.5 million. The proportion of MNP as a source of new subscribers is continuously increasing. We know that MNP subscribers have higher ARPU and lower churn rate, so an increase in the MNP ratio also drives improvement in financial performance.

These are the earnings results for the mobile segment in the fourth quarter. Revenue increased from the third quarter as more MNO subscribers became paying subscribers after coming off the 1-year free campaign, device sales increased, and Rakuten Symphony started to contribute to the top line.

Depreciation expenses and network-related costs continued to increase due to the accelerated expansion of Rakuten's network. Operating loss has expanded due to continued upfront investments in the MNO business. But losses should start to shrink from the second quarter due to an increase in paying users, an acceleration of subscriber growth and reduction in roaming costs. We expect Q1 to represent a bottoming out of the losses and profitability to improve thereafter.

Rakuten Mobile was ranked the #1 mobile carrier for customer satisfaction in a third-party survey in December 2021. Ease of connectivity, which has been an issue, will be rapidly resolved by achieving 96% population coverage and by densification of base stations. We expect that the pace of customer acquisition will accelerate further in the future.

[Tareq Amin, executive]

Greetings to all. 2021 was a significantly important year for Rakuten. We previously made some projections and some predictions. Today, I am here to tell you we are already delivering on those for our shareholders.

We promised a significant important commercial deal, and we concluded a contract with German MNO 1&1 in August, and delivery is well underway and on schedule. We have met our coverage obligation in Japan about 4 years ahead of plan, and we've introduced numerous products in 2021, most notably Symware, the next-generation on-site platform converging multiple network functions, RAN, cloud and IP routing; and Symworld, our platform marketplace and portal, making planning, design, dimensioning and operation of networks seamless and frictionless. I am very proud of what the team have delivered and look forward to this year's incremental success.

Rakuten Symphony accelerated journey started with the idea to do things differently, an idea that a 21st century network require 21st century thinking, 21st century technology and 21st century business model. We are a disruptor. We adopted best-of-bread technology to build our network, and we are now making a business out of helping others to do it. We've proven this disruption in our domestic market, and we are implementing the change for our clients.

In just a few years, we've built and launched our network in Japan, acquired 3 innovative companies, grew the team from a handful to over 2,000 engineers, 90% of which are working in R&D, and established entities in numerous countries around the world. I feel very confident in our ability to deliver on the promise to disrupt the market, to continue to lead in innovation and grow the business at an unprecedented pace.

The opportunity ahead of us is massive. The spend on network buildout will see a significant ramp-up in the next few years as operators start rolling out 5G networks at a commercial scale. We are well positioned to capture our fair share of this spend. We believe strongly that our domain-focused business unit, along with strong sales and delivery teams, will deliver.

If you look at the total addressable market in each of the domains, you will see that each business unit can stand on its own as a separate company. I am very excited about the potential for each of our business units as I look at this massive opportunity ahead of us.

Our bold ambition to lead industry transformation is well underway. We've successfully concluded on numerous contracts in 2021. Most notably is the 1&1 contract in Germany, and there are more to come. The results were multibillion-dollar bookings. We have built a significant pipeline of interested customers for Rakuten Symphony.

Core to our values is to lead technology innovation. We have built our organization around innovation engines, we call them business units, focused around the 5 domains of the new world telco networks. We have over 2,000 strong engineering-focused organization, made 3 acquisition, rolled out over 70 products and solutions and continue to invest heavily in our engineering capability.

The industry has woken up and started to listen. We've been fortunate to receive accolades or recognition for our domestic network as well as our innovative culture. I am very happy with all these awards, most notably the GLOMO Award in 2021. I have recently had the opportunity to join discussion with government and regulators around the world. This is a good sign the industry is taking us seriously.

Looking ahead in 2022, we will focus on our execution and delivery in Japan, Germany and other countries and region. We look forward to securing a number of clients for Symware in 2022. We are considering a couple more acquisition and adjacencies of our stack while we continue to focus on the organic development of our portfolio of capabilities I shared with you earlier.

And last but not least, accelerate the buildout of our R&D, sales and delivery teams to build the foundation for the next decade with our objective to lead, transform and disrupt this industry.

Thank you very much for your time today, and I am looking forward for another successful year for Rakuten.

[Makoto Arima, executive]

Rakuten's advertising revenue increased significantly in 2021 due to the expansion of online advertising and the acceleration of digital transformation. The revenue growth rate has been even higher than our domestic e-commerce business rate, contributing to an improvement in the profit margin.

Here is an analysis of the growth of the advertising business in 2021. Along with expansion of e-commerce, the main growth factor was an acceleration of ad placements by internal advertisers, meaning merchants on Rakuten Ichiba, and external advertisers, meaning major consumer goods manufacturers. In particular, ad placements by major consumer goods manufacturers grew significantly in 2021. This was due to the expansion of O2O efforts aimed at mutual online and off-line customer transfers while leveraging online ads that can measure effectiveness. Internal ad inventory and ad revenue from the external ad sector are accelerating year-by-year, maintaining very high growth rates.

The Rakuten Group has accumulated a large amount of highly accurate data based on consumption behavior data and payment data, both online and off-line. Rakuten has one of the largest collections of data both in quantity and quality in Japan. In addition to the data we have accumulated to capture the expanding O2O market, our growing mobile business will allow us to accumulate data that is completely different from our existing demographics, leading to further growth. By making use of these advantages, we can expand online and off-line integrated ad revenue and further contribute to the profit margin growth of the entire group.

[Naho Kono, executive]

As people's lifestyle has changed significantly with the spread of the COVID, Rakuten continue to respond to these changes and maintain a high rate of growth. Thanks to high user retention rate and cross-use of services, both the number of the active users and cross-use increased steadily. This is also remarkable in comparison with the previous year, which was significantly boosted by the lifestyle changes of the first year of the pandemic.

Mobile is expected to be the driver of the further accelerated growth of the Rakuten Ecosystem. Compared to the acquisition of the Rakuten Card members, the rate of the acquisition of Rakuten mobile users has been more than 3x faster. By its nature indispensable to user lifestyles, the mobile service increase user loyalty to the Rakuten Ecosystem and create synergies with other services.

Rakuten Mobile clearly promote increased [ use ] of the other services. Looking at the ecosystem usage of the Rakuten Mobile subscribers 1 year after sign-up, 35% become new users of Rakuten Ichiba. Similarly, 20% become new users of Rakuten Card, 10% for Rakuten Bank and 12% for Rakuten Pay. In addition, for users who had already been using the Rakuten Ichiba, GMS per person increased significantly following mobile subscription. This page compares the purchase volume of an existing Rakuten Ichiba user 1 year before and after joining the Rakuten Mobile. After subscribing to Rakuten Mobile, average Ichiba market spending rise by nearly 70%. We see improvement of the customer LTV through use of the mobile services itself. And we also see these synergies increasing the membership value of the entire Rakuten Group.

[Yasufumi Hirai, executive]

Rakuten's Technology division employs approximately 5,900 engineers in 10 cities spread across 7 countries around the world. In Japan, more than 60% of our engineers come from a non-Japanese background, and this diversified global workforce continue to challenge and drive innovation.

Rakuten India continues to expand its operations. And with the rapid increase in employees, we will move into a brand-new premise in downtime Bangalore this year. The Rakuten blockchain lab in Belfast, Northern Ireland, continues research and development on the latest in blockchain technologies, including crypto assets and NFTs. In addition to the Rakuten Institute of Technology in Tokyo, our branches in Boston, Singapore, Paris and Bangalore continue contributing to the Rakuten Group with cutting-edge research in natural language processing and practical application of the multi-language translation to Rakuten Translate, which is based on deep learning technology.

Additionally, we are proactively contributing to the creation of the sustainable future, and we have committed to data center operations that utilize renewable energy to further contribute to the realization of a carbon-neutral society.

[Takuya Kitagawa, executive]

In Rakuten Institute of Technology or RIT, we fully leveraged our global presence in our R&D efforts. Here, please let me introduce 2 very exciting moonshot projects. One is quantum technology and computing research based on Cambridge U.S. Together with QR computing, which is a company established by Harvard and MIT professors, Rakuten is exploring the potential of quantum technology and computer. Quantum computer is still very early stage, but it is likely that it will become game-changing technology in 10 years.

With the potential to host quantum computers in our cloud, we are very excited to work with QuEra Computing. Another example is the collaboration between Rakuten Medical and Rakuten India to develop cancer treatment called photo immunotherapy. Leveraging the talent in Rakuten India with machine learning capability, we conduct research in order to identify biomarkers of patients who respond well to other treatments. This understanding in return should help Rakuten Medical to further develop the treatment. Almost everybody has the experience of losing close family or friends from cancer, contributing to such treatment is very meaningful, and we are proud to challenge this problem as Rakuten Group.

[Kentaro Hyakuno, executive]

Rakuten Group productivity has continued to steadily improve. Excluding the mobile logistics and investment businesses, operating profit per full time employee and profit per total cost grew by over 20% year-on-year. They are the 3 major initiatives behind the improvement of these indicators: the number of employees participant in Kaizen activities exceeded 4,000 people; through cost optimization, we achieved a profit contribution of approximately JPY 12 billion; and through improvement in unprofitable business, approximately JPY 3 billion.

Group-wide participants in Kaizen activities or QCC also continued to significantly increase in 2021. The result of these activities was the accumulation and knowledge sharing of approximately 1,000 example of improvement, which we calculate contribution over JPY 3 billion to the bottom line. Since 2021, the introduction of QCC in the mobile business, which is one of the most important business has been steadily progressing and it's expanding at the pace about 2 years ahead of existing businesses.

In 2022, we aim to accelerate the initiatives to contribute to the group's profit by focusing on supply chain management, call center and shop operations and logistics costs.

Rakuten continuously measures Net Promoter scores, an indicator used to evaluate and improve customer experience. As you can see, that Net Promoter Score of the Rakuten Group was negative versus competition in 2017, but has been continuously outperforming the competition since 2018. The score in the second quarter of 2021 was up 11.5 points.

We also continue to measure the rate of users who report to dissatisfying experiences at all Rakuten Group services. Over the past year, we have reduced the ratio of dissatisfied experience by 0.8% through the group quality assurance activities such as implementing standards and emphasizing the process quality as well as utilization of the skills, improved in hundreds of QCC activities.

By revising our compensation policy and other measures, we continue to reduce our turnover rate with a 3% improvement over 2017. But the aim to deliver on our mission of empowering people and society both now and in the future as we work toward realizing the carbon-neutral society by 2050. Through an environment-conscious platform established with our businesses, partners and users, we will continue to take on new challenges. We will also continue to be transparent with disclosure of relevant information.

In 2022, we will work to strengthen our internal organization to focus on these issues. We will establish a new environmental department directly under the COO and implement regular working group and all employee meeting to focus on environmental topics. We will work to set science-based targets in line with recognized global standards and report on the progress against these targets.

In 2021, we expect to achieve our target for Rakuten Group to adopt 100% renewable electricity. Now we will aim to do the same for the entire Rakuten Group, including major consolidated subsidiaries by 2023.

The Rakuten Group has been operating COVID-19 vaccination centers since May 2021. There has been 0 incidents and the time required for vaccine recipients from reception to vaccination has been reduced to 3 minutes and 30 seconds. With this safe and efficient system, nearly 900,000 vaccinations has been administrated at full sight nationwide.

In 2022, the Rakuten Group will support the operations of large-scale vaccination center at Noevir Stadium Kobe and booster shots. Rakuten Group is also offering vaccination opportunities at center in Tokyo. The total number of vaccinations administrated by the Rakuten Group is expected to reach 1 million by end of March. Through its safe and efficient system developed during the pandemic, the Rakuten Group will continue to contribute to the COVID-19 vaccinations.

[Masatada Kobayashi, executive]

Since Rakuten's founding, our mission is to contribute to society, working hand in hand with our stakeholders to meet their expectations and create a sustainable future for all. In order to prioritize our efforts and drive positive change even more effectively, we have established what we call our [indiscernible], which helps us identify important issue that Rakuten should address. We have categorized those issues into focus areas. Let me introduce examples of our efforts for each of them.

We believe creating work environments that ensure the well-being of employee is critical. Last quarter, we are satisfied as a good health management corporation by METI and Sports Yell Company by the Japan Sports Agency in recognition of health-related initiatives conducted online. Enhancing corporate culture remains our priority. We also continue to encourage communication amongst employees through one-on-one meetings across the group and through the R-star platform at Rakuten Mobile, for example.

We actively engaged with Rakuten Mobile suppliers in 2021 based on the Rakuten Group's sustainable procurement instruction. This instruction was established to contribute positively to society through our supply chain. This year, we'll leverage this experience and replicate our efforts across our entire ecosystem. We consider climate change, resource management and biodiversity to be issues of critical importance. From these 3 perspectives, we are taking advantage of our different platforms and partnerships to promote initiatives across our value chain, downstream and upstream.

Finally, our efforts to proactively disclose information on our ESG initiatives have been positively received. Rakuten has been selected as a constituent of major ESG indices and received various certifications. With our slogan, Walk Together, will continue to enhance our guidance and sustainability activities to empower society over the long term.

[アルトマン 京子, executive]

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Rakuten Group's 2021 Full Year and Fourth Quarter Financial Results Meeting. Now it is the Q&A session from the media and investors and analysts.

First, let me introduce today's participants. Hiroshi Mikitani, Kenji Hirose, Masayuki Hosaka, Yoshihisa Yamada, Tareq Amin, Kentaro Hyakuno, Yasufumi Hirai, Makoto Arima and Kazunori Takeda. So management are joining this Q&A session. Now it is the Q&A session. This Q&A session will be conducted using simultaneous English and Japanese interpretation, please select the language you would like to hear in your audio feed from the [indiscernible] bar at the [indiscernible] screen. Please do not select mute original audio. When the interpreter speaks, the original volume will be lowered and you will hear the interpreted voice overlaying the speaker.

The presentation materials shown have been aligned with Japanese. If necessary, please download the presentation material from the investor page on the corporate site. And we will start by taking questions from the media for the first half of this session and then we we'll take questions from investors for the rest of the hour. So let's get started. [Operator Instructions]

So we will take questions from the media first. And then you can also inquire via Q&A form. Please note that we can only accept questions regarding the results. In order to answer as many questions as possible, please keep your questions to 2 questions for person. [Operator Instructions]

[Operator]

So a freelancer, [ Ishikawa-san ].

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] My name is [ Ishikawa ]. I'm a freelance journalist. A 96% population coverage in mobile, congratulations. Now going forward, because you have reached that target platinum band might be easier for you to apply for that to MIC. So what is your stance on that? What is your thinking? Because after 3G, of course, some of the carriers might not give back what they have been given. So what do you think?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] Okay. Mr. [ Ishikawa-san ], well, [ Ishikawa-san ] that's a difficult question to answer. I'm sure you understand that it's difficult to answer, because to begin with, for the government, they actually gave permission to this fourth carrier that is us. And the intent was to promote or enhance competition so that the market price will be more rational. The mobile service or the price will be more rationalized or streamlined and thereby enhancing convenience for the people. That was the idea. So in the mid-band that we have now, of course, with innovation and ideas, we can't pretty much cover a lot, but with platinum band available, of course, we -- in terms of efficiency, of course, we can actually compete better with the 3 other competitors, the incumbent carriers. So that's our wish. I hope that is going to happen. That's the extent to which I can answer your question. Apologies to you.

[アルトマン 京子, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. And let's move on to the next and News [indiscernible], [ Hatanishi-san ], please?

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] News [indiscernible], [ Hatani ], can you hear my voice?

[アルトマン 京子, executive]

[Interpreted] Yes, we can hear you.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] So Rakuten Bank IPO, I have 2 questions. And last fall, you announced that you will be starting for preparation. And at the very beginning of your presentation, I think you touched upon that. And what is the current situation might be or preparation? So the timing of IPO, if you have any comment, please, share that with us? And then when you do this IPO, I think the financing would be possible. And then Rakuten Bank or the synergy to the group, what do you think about it?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] Well, IPO preparation, it's progressing as we scheduled, and our plan is to go IPO before the end of this year. So it will be the second half, close to the year-end timing for the IPO and it's progressing pretty well. That's my understanding. And as you know, other businesses, we have license businesses about the banks. So it is quite -- having a strong characteristics of licensing business. So having the [indiscernible], the capital, so the financial healthiness would become better. And then the various [ ALM ] would be possible with that. And then the profitability can be raised to a large extent. That's how we -- I think, therefore, as for this -- the bank, so the overseas and the new bank or KakaoBank or they have a great valuation when they IPO-ed.

And Rakuten Bank, if we can follow suit, then we will be able to -- the financing to some extent, and then we can sustain the synergy. That's how I view. And then by having a heavier equity and then when we do the affiliated method, I think, and then, I think, we can sustain the current -- the start. That's all. Thank you very much.

[アルトマン 京子, executive]

[Interpreted] Suhan Shimbun. Ms. [ Kawanishi-san ], please.

[Unknown Attendee]

Yes. [ Kawanishi ] is my name. I'm from Suhan Shimbun. So this is about logistics, the -- or delivery. I think speedy delivery is 1 challenge that you have. And I'd like to ask you more about that. Yahoo! recently started quick commerce, what they call quick commerce. So what is your thinking around that kind of an approach? Any thinking about that?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] Takeda-san, can you address this question first?

[Kazunori Takeda, executive]

[Interpreted] Takeda. I'm in charge of logistics. My name is Takeda. Well, for logistics and distribution, we intend to have various forms of evolution. What I mean is the SCM chain, for example, if you look at the total, we have -- we are a marketplace. That's the nature of our business. So the freight or the shipments will come out of the various warehouses of the merchants. And of course, we would like to have the Rakuten Super Logistics, JP Rakuten joint venture, that is hopefully can handle as much as many as possible, and we will have inventory there. And together with the merchants, of course, we're trying to raise that volume increase that -- and we're taking on that challenge. And so the question is where to have the inventory? And I think for quick delivery that would hold the key.

And another aspect is, of course, we deliver to all corners of the country. And therefore, we have the fulfillment centers in different locations and that location is very important. Initially or originally, of course, we were to cover the last mile as well. But with the JP Rakuten joint venture this time, we actually have the areas for delivery owned by JP. So we can cover all the different parts of Japan, and therefore, that leads to a shorter lead time in terms of delivery.

And also, we can actually have the same inventory in different multiple filling stations, and that also translates into shorter lead time. So through such efforts, quick delivery can be made possible. So that's another path. And many of the users' needs is such that they buy more in e-commerce. And therefore, they're visited by delivery people many times a day and then sometimes the resident is away, not home. And so that's inconvenient on the part of the receivers. But also when you think about CO2 emissions, that's a negative as well.

And therefore, taking those aspects into account, there might be people who are not in a rush to receive the purchased products. So why don't we have combined deliveries and have just 1 shipment for multiple merchandise. And so partially, we are conducting experiments with JP and also the unmanned drop-off of parcels and other things that are being tried as well so that we can have logistics revolution, so to speak, we can realize together with JP. That is what we're hoping to achieve.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] Okay. Thank you very much. And I think the point of the question has to do with the delivery, right?

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] Yes.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] So for that aspect, well, Rakuten, of course, we are providing so many -- a variety of services that are unprecedented maybe in the world. And I think it would be quite difficult to take care of everything by ourselves. So collaborations or alliances with other partners, not just with 1 company but Demae-can, the food delivery service actually is using our service as well so that people can take -- get meals delivered. And so that kind of a partnership arrangement would be effective as well.

So there are many things to do in this area. And actually, this area or field is highly competitive in my understanding. Therefore, for us, logistics, 51% is actually dependent on JP, Japan Post and the so-called cloud delivery, quick shopping, maybe that's the Japanese term to express that.

Well, on that notion, we would like to partner with various entities. Well, from the viewpoint of customers as long as they have the IDs of Rakuten and accumulate points that's their -- they're happy. So I think partnering -- or partnerships, I think, or alliances will be a primary method that we think we will be using going forward. Thank you.

[アルトマン 京子, executive]

[Interpreted] Okay. Then we move to the next, freelance [ Ishino-san ], please.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] Freelance [ Ishino ] speaking. I have a question about Rakuten Mobile. In 2022, the profitability will be recovering. And so far, how much contribution is expected? So roaming percentage, the current status of the roaming percentage. And then to what extent that will be reduced? Therefore, it would contribute to improving the profitability. So I would like to know the breakdown of loss-making today. If you can share the information, I would like to know that. And also population coverage, 96% you achieved. So after that, what would you like to do about it? And I think you mentioned the [ AST ] leverage, one of the things that was in Mikitani-san's presentation. So do you have sufficient capacity? That is part of the question.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] So [ AST ], so there are 3 things. As a rural area or under populated area, we are going to use [ AST ], and that is 99% -- mid 90%, 90% to high 90%, 90%. And then we would like to use our Rakuten own network. So to 95% to 99%. So we would like to utilize our Rakuten own network. [ NAC ] as mentioned in my presentation, for example, in case of disaster, when our site goes down and then back up, so we can utilize it for that purpose flexibly.

And then for the urban area, it's not sufficient. But in those rural area or disaster, I think the coverage or the capacity is enough. And the capacity -- I visited Osaka the other day, and if you have more [indiscernible], please go to Osaka station and around. And then you will understand how the speed of Rakuten Mobile's speed around there. And then that would be a good surprise to you and people would migrate into the use of 5G. And including Tesla, so 5G frequency, high frequency rate is very high.

So in urban area, then the -- where you require the high capacity and then sub-6 and then the station or [indiscernible] or stadium, those areas [indiscernible] can cover those areas. And then the 5G deployment cost comparing to other players, we are much cheaper. That is our characteristic. So in terms of the device or equipment, we are partnering with others. And also, we have our own design. By having them, then we are able to reduce the cost to a large extent. And roaming cost, so the -- how much percentage is not disclosed, I believe. However -- but it's a very big burden, that is the fact. And then it's been shrinking comparing to the old days.

And then the user is increasing, but the percentage is decreasing. Therefore, we have to take balance between the 2. And then -- and that will be decreasing. Yamada-san, do you -- how are we disclosing the information related to that?

[Yoshihisa Yamada, executive]

[Interpreted] And going back to the slide about the base station, the map. Next page. So I showed you the traffic volume percentage in this graph. So this is Rakuten's coverage area and data usage rate, it's growing. That is how you interpret this map.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] So it would be decreasing not the level of the JPY 10 billion.

[アルトマン 京子, executive]

[Interpreted] Okay, we have limited time, meaning 2 more questions from the press and that will be it for the press people, please do understand. So from Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, [ Ichikawa-san ], you have a hand up, please.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] [ Ichikawa ] from Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. I have 2 questions. First, about the group's ecosystem. Mobile is added to the ecosystem. So do you think all the pieces are present and ready? Or going forward, what sort of synergy do you expect to have for further growth? And also, I think for the entire group, do you think you will be getting closer to being profitable in the black ink? Okay, second question is, Kishida administration talks about having this prevention of the virus coming into Japan. So what do you think about that going forward?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] Okay. So ecosystem will finance or financial -- fintech insurance card, Rakuten Pay insurance, General Insurance, Life Insurance, Edy and Bank and Trust Bank -- Trust -- investment trust and the securities. And in addition, in Europe and Taiwan, we have licenses already acquired for financial activity. So I think for fintech or financial sector, we have pretty much what we need. Now I think rather than an ecosystem, we need to think about the cloud.

One of the potential -- great potential for Rakuten Mobile, I think, is related to the cloud, cloud being developed or created by ourselves. So as a byproduct, we will see many things coming or emerging. For example, of course, platform for mobile. Symphony is going to sell to different people, not necessarily end to end, but of course, major companies like AT&T are actually purchasing from us now. So that opportunity is huge, really. And in that overall landscape, new content, how it's going to look like is what we have to think about Rakuten Europe, for example.

Rakuten TV, if you purchase or subscribe to a Smart TV, Rakuten TV will come with it. And Smart TV is the foundation on which you will watch Rakuten TV. And Netflix and Amazon Life, of course, rather than competing against those channels, rather -- the platform will be created on top and that's becoming successful in Europe. So by taking that approach, I think content will likely be added to the ecosystem going forward. And again, of course, it's not really head on type of financing burden being born, but rather, we would like to really go into the contents business, but it doesn't really mean a major financing or investments, but we want to be smart there.

And the Link and Viber, I think, will become very important in the overall ecosystem. And we would like to, therefore, strengthen those. I'm talking from a global perspective. Viber, it used to have more than JPY 10 billion in the red, but it is now profitable. Therefore, I think the management capabilities overseas is enhanced pretty much. And the profit and loss situation of the group overall, Hiroshi-san, can you address that part of the question?

[Hiroshi Takasawa, executive]

[Interpreted] Yes. For this fiscal period, we're not disclosing that information. But as I explained in the presentation video, for the net asset portion, of course, we would like to have a really sound firm management. But anyway, mobile business will bottom out in Q2 of this year. And in 2023 and beyond, we are expecting a major improvement. Of course, the market situation, among others, might have some impact, but this is basically what we're expecting for the future.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] Okay. Timing is important for one, but mobile business model, the core of that business model is what I would like to remind you, JPY 5 million, JPY 10 million. I don't -- I'm sure it will grow to JPY 20 million and so forth. And so it says in the market is 7% or so, but that actually number -- that number includes the corporate contracts as well. So clearly, consumer-based calculations, I will say 10% is what we're aiming for.

And for corporate customers, we have like 400,000 clients to begin with. Therefore, I think we can be pretty competitive already. Of course, we have just started, and therefore, it's not really corporate services that we're really focusing on right now, but we will. And once we start, then I'm sure that there will be a rapid pickup by the corporate customers as well. So for the corporates, maybe 20%, 25% market share, might be the market share that we would like to aim for.

Now for the prevention of virus from coming in to Japan. Well, when you're in Japan, you don't really feel it so much. But when I talk with many CEOs abroad and they ask me, when is Japan going to open up? And of course, often covered in the news are students that want to come to Japan to study. And of course, the world is fighting against COVID-19. And I think we're talking about a realistic opening up of the economy. And COVID-19, especially Omicron cases are increasing in Japan already. So what's the statistical benefit of closing the country? That's quite maybe questionable.

And to be extreme, maybe people that try to come in to Japan have gone through many, many PCR tests. And so that's safe. You have to think about that as well. And people need to think of living with COVID-19, we call it with corona or COVID. Of course, the United States, for example, had this record high growth economy. And so it was mentioned just recently in some of the conversations.

And so against that backdrop, Japan is continuing this closure, blocking outsiders from coming in. So we're lagging other -- behind others by 1 year or 1.5 years in terms of economic recovery. I'm wondering if Japan will not be forgotten by the rest of the world. I worry about that. So I think we need to waste no time, but think about what we should do about letting foreigners come in to Japan because I think it's maybe better that we open up and just could -- stop doing what we're doing right now.

[アルトマン 京子, executive]

[Interpreted] Okay. Let me move to the next, freelance [ Onishi-san ], please.

[Unknown Attendee]

[Interpreted] So Symphony and Mobile would become a booster and then globalization would proceed. And Viber is now materialized. And so far, how much percentage of business coming from overseas? And 2 year or 3 year or 5 years after having that fund, how much the global or the business portion would be growing as you move forward?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] So the -- to date, obviously, the broadband will be covered by Hiroshi-san later. So GTV, Rakuten Reward, already went beyond JPY 1 trillion and looking at the overall U.S. business, and it's already turned into the black or the profit or about to becoming profit. So one of the keyword is Rakuten Symphony. Why? So the mobile operator such as Telefonica and I'm talking to various mobile operators, including them. And then they would like to do this OTT, other services And it's not a simple connectivity. That's not fine. So the adopting platform, and then the other services partnership can be concluded and then grow with them. That is how and what I would like to do. At the end of the day, Japan and [ oversee ] the sales portion to become 50-50. That is our goal. That's all. Thank you very much. Please add some comment.

[Hiroshi Takasawa, executive]

[Interpreted] So the overseas business portion, less than 20% today. That is my understanding. But let me double check. Anyway, as Mikitani-san mentioned, so including Symphony, we would like to grow the overseas business portion, and that's our expectation.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] And Symphony, that is the corporation here in Japan, but -- so the other target customers are located in overseas. So the civil -- the JPY 100 billion is expected business side. Thank you very much.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] So this concludes the media Q&A session for the financial results meeting. Next, we will answer questions from investors and analysts. You can actually inquire by Q&A form, if you like. [Operator Instructions] Okay. HSBC, Neale-san, you have your hand up, please.

[Neale Anderson, analyst]

Congratulations on reaching that 96% population coverage. I assume now that your focus will switch to 5G, can you share any details on the number of 5G base stations you have deployed or the population coverage, both now and also your targets for this year?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Okay. I think [indiscernible] or Tareq will follow me. But we have to really make sure that there are basically 3 different types of 5G. One is millimeter wave, which is pretty fast and -- but the penetration is basically just kind of straight, right? And we also have a sub-6. And we also have the -- what we call a kind of not fake, but kind of fake 5G. And so what we are focusing on is real high-speed 5G. And we believe our technology is competitive or even stronger than the technology, which other 3 incumbents are trying to deploy, including beam forming and so forth. This 1 probably Tareq can follow. And with regard to actual -- the coverage as of now and our intent, Yoshi can follow up.

Obviously, we just started our telecom company 2 years ago. But the beauty of software-defined network is that we just kind of need to upgrade our software. And definitely, we're going to -- for the band-wise, we have to deploy the suitable -- of physical hardware antenna. But the benefit of the 5G and, basically, transforming to 5G from 4G is relatively easy for us compared with other company.

On top of that, probably we are the only company which provides a narrowband IoT nationwide. So maybe, Tareq, if you can just talk about the technological difference between us and the incumbents and, Yoshi, please follow up with the actual coverage data and so forth.

[Tareq Amin, executive]

Thank you. So on 5G specifically, I think what differentiate us from day 0 is our selection of the technology base for the radio base station. To my knowledge, we're the only operator worldwide that 100% of our base station for sub-6 employees, what we call massive MIMO. Massive MIMO is really what everybody wants to evolve towards. It's the ability for you to track users on an individual basis. It improves coverage, capacity.

And as Mickey indicated, for us, 5G was not an afterthought. It's something that we architected from day 0. Our base stations today have a common fiber, which is dark fiber that reaches all of them. So we don't have to worry about mobile backhaul, the strength of towers. The antennas that we use are all active antennas. And by the way, this goes the same for our millimeter wave. So we use 32T, 32R for sub-6, and we use analog beam forming for millimeter wave also to improve coverage and capacity. So in terms of technology, the latest report, if you look at the report that was published by Opensignal recently, it shows clearly that Rakuten Mobile network has the fastest 5G coverage in Japan. There is no secret to this. It just shows the power and the elegance of this technology.

The second thing, to Mickey's point, I want to encourage you to ask a question, why narrowband IoT has not succeeded in general? Well, the answer is very simple. It is because the cost and the implications when you run and manage network through hardware, it is in the billions. In Rakuten Mobile network, it's just a software flag on or off to activate narrowband IoT, and this will continue, by the way, whether it is 4G, 5G or 6G. So that's a big, big differentiator in the technology. Yoshi, do you want to take the coverage?

[Yoshihisa Yamada, executive]

Yes. We don't disclose population coverage for 5G. In terms of the number of 5G base stations, it's about 4,000 quickly expanding. We will obviously more than double, probably add maybe at least 10,000 this year. So quickly expanding. Of course, you don't just need the base stations, but you also need 5G devices for people to get benefit. So we're kind of -- we're looking at the penetration of 5G devices. But anyhow, because we only have single spectrum for 4G, we think 5G is very important to provide capacity and speed. So we will quickly ramp up once there's enough penetration of 5G devices.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

So Neale, if you have time, please go and visit Osaka station. There, we already have 5G beam forming massive MIMO. And traffic there, half of the traffic goes to 5G. So more and more, the 5G will take -- many people about -- do you have enough capacity. But this is not a problem because most of the traffic will be 5G as a matter of fact. And with the 5G, we have enough spectrum.

[Unknown Executive]

We move on to the next. [indiscernible] management, [ David Li ], please.

[Unknown Analyst]

Hello?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

We can hear you, [ David ].

[Unknown Analyst]

Now congratulations on the 96% nationwide coverage that was achieved earlier than expected. Now that you have made this great achievement, tell us what your plan is on subscriber growth going forward. I know you touched on that a little while earlier. It has been about 130,000 per month, should we expect this number to start rising? And what strategy will you use to help you increase this number because the other existing 3 competitors came out with different price plans in order to compete with you. They came out with price plans that were similar to yours. That's my first question.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Yes. You have to, [ David ] -- think about it. No, 20 gigabyte is not enough in the area of 5G. And you have to compare. If you use 50 byte, 100 gigabyte, how much do you need to pay for a -- whatever like a -- name. I forgot the other name. You're talking about probably, sometimes 3x to 5x more expensive than what usually people pay. And it is very obvious that when you go to 5G, people will consume much more data than before. And these are our target customers. And that's going to mainstream. So I think the high-volume users, the cost advantage or price difference is significant, even with their -- the plan be kind of deployed.

And for the very light users, obviously, we are very, very competitive. So our model, 1 thing I just want to emphasize is we want to be very busy, open and very fair. For the people who do not use much data, we're going to be very cheap. People who use a lot of data we are going to 3x, 4x, sometimes 5x cheaper than our competitors. So when we explained about our price plan, basically, please compare unlimited data, not like people who are just using 20 gigabyte. That's kind of a marketing [ view ]. And then many people started to move. And then the other thing is the commerce is very important. As I mentioned in my video, where we have like Tokyo versus rural area, the subscription percentage is about half.

So as we grow our coverage, and we have done it, but we need to enhance it. I think the subscription number is going to just keep growing because that's the most important thing. And we have been waiting for this. You have to remember, we were -- we just started 2 years ago. And I don't think there's anybody who built this network with like this speed, and then we're going to keep doing it. And we're going to have as good coverage as our competitors in the near future. So then, who is much more simpler, who is fair?

Obviously, they would try to disturb us and try to kind of come up with a funky plan, which is trying to kind of mislead the consumer in my opinion. But I think our price is very competitive, plus our ecosystem contribution is huge. And we also are planning to -- because since we're providing like free calls and so forth, we are going to provide more personalized offers, personalized advertisement to the consumer to improve our ARPU. And our ARPU is going up, very rapidly. So ARPU and also the customer subscription.

And we have been providing this kind of 1 year free, and then 3 months free, but we stopped 3 months free. So from the month 0, now the subscriber, if they use more than 1 gigawatt, they need to pay. But I think that people started to realize it. So I am very, very confident about this. And then if -- we also started to use all these techniques. We used to increase -- accelerate the acquisition of Rakuten Card membership, like integrating into Rakuten basket setting, for example, setting iPhones or Rakuten marketplace and try to follow up with our MNO service and so forth. That's going extremely well as well. So we're going to also enhance the synergy in terms of member subscribers acquisition through our ecosystem.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. So you are saying, Mickey, is that you don't need to come up with any more aggressive marketing plans in order to increase the number of subscribers, new subscribers per month. So you...

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

It's not definite, right? I think if you just stay then our competitor may do something very, very strange. So I'm not saying that it's not going to be different. But at this point then, we want to have more paid customer. Just then that pure number is not that important, right? I think our goal is to break even and in the future make a huge amount of profit from this. And then if you think about the fact that we get to like $15 million to $20 million, we are talking about billions of bulk dollars, not 1, 2, more than that -- of the profit. So that's what my vision is. And then we are carefully monitoring who are profitable, who are not profitable. That's what we are going to do.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. Great. Let me move on to my second question, which is about the fintech business. As you explained to me the last time, you are focusing on growing the number of customers, the number of credit cards issued, the number of bank accounts, and then the amount of charges per credit card. All these are generating great numbers right now, and they are much higher than the revenue and operating profit growth. When do you think the revenue and profit growth -- operating profit growth will start catching up with a number of subscriber growth, et cetera?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Well, a couple of things. Then obviously, customer acquisition, of course, is very, very expensive, right? And our customer acquisition is much lower than our competitors. Yet, the speed of customer acquisition is so rapid. We have caught up with standalone SPI for a number of accounts already. We are bigger than standalone SPI. But if you may, you consolidate it, then change the reporting numbers, the consolidated basis, then we are #2. But we're going to catch up with them probably this year. So if you think about this, then the last question customer acquisition, once we slow down a customer acquisition, it is going to be unbelievably profitable.

So really, but as far as we can grow, we do not want to sacrifice. We want to dominate -- [ pass on ] finance business, and we can. So I think now, at this point, we're going to balance the profit and which is what we are doing right now. And we can grow more faster, more aggressively, but we are kind of managing it. I don't know whether that's a good thing or not, but I think the financial market is somehow not really super long-term oriented.

So that's what we're working on. It's -- and then, but the other thing is that we have been a little bit too generous about giving out the points, like for example, Rakuten Securities and so forth. So some of the customers are not really profitable for us. And we are -- what we have started to do is analyzing 1 customer by 1 customer and think about what is our best point strategy for them. And then like our asset management has been to several trillion yen. But the point cost was significant. So we changed that. That's going to give us a full year like JPY 7 billion, JPY 8 billion of profit simply speaking, that's as easy as that.

So we can -- and for Rakuten Bank, because of the not enough equity to be very honest, it was very difficult to have the asset liability management strategy to allocate certain proper amount based on the risk profile of each asset. So now Rakuten Bank created a new growth strategy to double the profit, which I think is doing very, very well.

Rakuten Card definitely, obviously, is definitely the cashing and the revolving credit, was a little bit slow because of people buying online but they do not really did that a lot of offline real shopping -- offline shopping. So once this pandemic is gone, I think this is going to start growing again. And also, we are kind of revisiting our point strategy too. I hope I answered to your question.

[Unknown Analyst]

My last question is you talked about e-commerce penetration being low in Japan. You said it's only 7% to 9% versus the U.S. at 20%, Europe at 20%, China at 40%. When do you think Japan will catch up? Let's say, doubling from the current penetration of about 8% to 16% to 20% because of doubling in 3 years, would mean a 24% growth rate for your Ichiba business. How long do you think it will take for Japan to double this e-commerce penetration?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Well, I think there will be some kind of a magic number that people will consider buying online is the kind of main line. And I think the reason why we are pushing this grocery shopping, Rakuten Seiyu Netsuper market is that this is something they will buy. We already got the location, enough location anyway kind of -- as daily basis. And I'm not a fortune teller, so I cannot tell when. But definitely, the car is now going to be as steep as it was in China or in the U.S. because the real shopping platform or infrastructure in Japan is -- compared with other countries, it's really good, convenient store, department store, [indiscernible] store. Having said that, as the more you have shopping, it is going to be very difficult for the physical stores to sustain their operation. And then I think there will be price advantage for online shopping in -- as we go on.

So I hope by 2000 -- our goal is to reach to JPY 10 trillion. The commitment is 2030, but I hope we can achieve it earlier. So the -- we're talking about -- I don't know how much percent is growth, but not so explosive growth because if you talk about 8 years from now and doubling it, it's not impossible. But I hope as the network speed accelerate -- now close to 80% to 90% of shopping is kind of on smartphones. The faster network becomes, it is going to be more -- much more present to [ applied ] stuff, right?

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. Yes. Yes, doubling in 8 years' time, would mean about 9% growth. That would not be -- I'm sure you can do better than that.

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

Yes. Bye.

[Unknown Executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. So our time is up, and this concludes the questions from investors and analysts. Last but not least, Mikitani-san, could you say something for wrapping up?

[Hiroshi Mikitani, executive]

[Interpreted] So thank you very much for joining our call today, and we had video and also Q&A session. During that session, I think you understand how we are progressing well. And from the past, people say many things to our company. Going back to the original, why are you doing the travel, or why are you going to the finance, why are you globalizing, and why are you expanding business to overseas market?

But from a mid- to long-term point of view, so we have to compete in the global market. Unless otherwise, profitability here in Japan would become really challenging. And then we are executing on -- for that purpose. And mobile, and we -- that technology is great. Well, it's not well understood here in Japan, which is a pity. But the potential of the revenue from this business is really high. And Rakuten Mobile, JPY 20 million, JPY 25 million is not impossible. I'm fully confident with that. We can expect huge synergy and then we can have a richer data with that, and then given that Rakuten's potential is great.

And today from Hiroshi-san, talked about the difference in the valuation. So we need to explain it very carefully and in detail to investors, analysts and media. So please stay tuned with us, and we have a great potential for growth. And then we have diversified business portfolio. And then it has uniformity and then this is quite unique to us. Thank you very much.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you very much. And this concludes Rakuten Group 2021 Full Year and Fourth Quarter Financial Results Meeting. Thank you very much for your participation.

[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]