E-commerce: Rakuten boosts its sales by 15.4% in 2014

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Feb 18, 2015

The Japanese online sales giant generated 598 billion yen ($5bn/£3.25bn) in sales during its 2014 fiscal year, an increase of 15.4%. The group saw its operating profit boosted by 17.9% to 781 million euros.

The growth was driven by an increase of 13.7% in online sales in its domestic market, as well as 17.4% growth of its e-commerce business in the rest of the world.  

Having acquired the mobile Internet communications app Viber last year, the group is now focusing in particular on smartphones to enhance its development. 

"The number of Internet users worldwide has continued to increase from 1.02 billion in 2005 to 2.92 billion in 2014," its annual report points out. "In particular, the number of smartphone users, which are customers bases for mobile Internet, is expected to reach 1.75 billion." 

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Mobile technology could therefore act as a big driver of growth for the group, which employs over 10,000 people worldwide. 

For its 2013 fiscal year, Rakuten generated a turnover of 518 billion yen ($4.3bn/£2.8bn), a 29.5% increase, of course even more sustained than in 2014.