TOKYO, Dec 10 (News On Japan) - Rakuten Mobile continues to draw attention every earnings season, and while its losses have been narrowing, the pain it inflicts on the Rakuten Group’s overall performance has not fundamentally changed. Even so, chair Hiroshi Mikitani describes the mobile business as contributing “more than expected,” and insists the company will maintain its stance of keeping low-price, unlimited data plans even as other carriers move to raise fees.
That position prompted SoftBank chief executive Junichi Miyagawa to call Rakuten’s strategy “unfair,” raising questions about what lies behind the remark.
Rakuten Mobile has long been viewed as struggling, and debate frequently surfaces on social media over whether the unit should be cut loose from the group. Looking at the mobile segment’s operating results for January to September 2025, the business posted an operating loss of 126.8 billion yen. This was an improvement compared with the same period a year earlier, but the division continues to weigh on group earnings.
Rakuten Mobile’s deficit peaked in fiscal 2022 and has gradually narrowed since then. For fiscal 2025, losses also appear on track to shrink from fiscal 2024. Even so, the group as a whole posted a net loss of 151.2 billion yen, partly due to impairment losses linked to the withdrawal of the Rakuten Mart online supermarket business from the Kansai region. The company had to lower the valuation of the business after profitability fell far short of initial expectations.
Online supermarkets face significant hurdles regardless of region. Whether goods are shipped from local stores or centralized warehouses, labor costs for picking and packaging are substantial, and even when robots are introduced, investment burdens remain high. Grocery margins are thin, meaning profitability requires high order volumes, yet many consumers still prefer choosing perishables such as fish or vegetables in person. These structural challenges have made online supermarkets difficult to scale.
Rakuten Mobile’s subscriber base, meanwhile, has exceeded 9.5 million, placing the 10 million mark within reach. Under the Rakuten ecosystem model, mobile subscribers tend to be heavy users of Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten Travel and Rakuten Securities, making them valuable customers. For this reason, even though the mobile unit is loss-making, it is treated as a strategically important business within the group.
Rakuten also allocates to the mobile segment a portion of earnings generated elsewhere in the group under the label of “mobile ecosystem contribution.” While Mikitani argues that the mobile division’s overall impact is “beyond expectations,” the approach has drawn scrutiny, as it effectively shifts profits from other internet businesses onto mobile to highlight its perceived value.
As major carriers raise mobile plan prices citing inflation, greater use of AI, enhanced security measures and higher equipment costs, Rakuten Mobile has deliberately chosen not to follow suit. Mikitani declared that the company would maintain low-priced unlimited plans, and subscriber numbers have risen as a result. As a late entrant, Rakuten must differentiate itself from NTT Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank, and its competitive lever is price. A steep hike would risk undermining the core rationale for entering the market in 2020, when Mikitani launched the service amid widespread criticism that mobile bills in Japan were too high.
SoftBank’s Miyagawa, however, argues that Rakuten is not shouldering its fair share of network-building responsibilities. The final portions of raising population coverage rates — the last 5 to 10 percent — require extensive investment in rural and sparsely populated areas, where installing base stations and laying fiber is costly. Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank have each expanded coverage through incremental, labor-intensive work, while Rakuten has relied heavily on KDDI’s roaming network in these regions.
Miyagawa contends that a carrier allocated spectrum under the national licensing framework should build out its own network, and that Rakuten’s ability to maintain low prices without undertaking the same level of infrastructure investment is “unfair.” The unusually sharp criticism reflects growing concern as Rakuten Mobile moves closer to surpassing 10 million lines and gradually expands its presence in a subscription-based industry where scale directly drives revenue through monthly fees and value-added services.
For incumbents, the prospect of Rakuten continuing to gain ground is a real threat to their subscriber base. Miyagawa’s remark underscores the competitive tension now emerging in a market where even small shifts in customer numbers can have significant long-term effects.
Source: Kyodo
