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Wave of European acquisitions
In its Japanese home market, other e-commerce companies come nowhere
near the Rakuten giant, but that is no longer enough for Mikitani. He
told German newspaper Handelsblatt he wants to take his main worldwide
competitor Amazon head-on, with Europe serving as the battlefield
between the American and the Japanese e-empire.
In 2010, the very aptly named Rakuten (Japanese for “optimism”) started
its conquest of Europe with French online retailer PriceMinister and
last September, it bought Play.com to gain access to one of the biggest
e-markets in the world: the United Kingdom. Furthermore, Rakuten has
acquired Russian Ozon.ru and German Tradoria – which is now renamed to
Rakuten.de.
Aiming for Amazon’s heart
The assault on Amazon reached the latter’s heartland as Rakuten bought
Canadian e-book producer Kobo, a supplier of big European players like
French Fnac, British WH Smith and German Media Markt.
Mikitani assures he is able to finance all of these acquisitions because
of Rakuten’s “very high cash flow”. The company is estimated to have
had a 4 billion euro turnover in 2011 and a very low debt ratio.
