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Creating a Truly World-Class Business
Promoting our strong domestic business and speeding up global expansion |
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In 2011, the Japanese economy gradually recovered from a slowdown from the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake, but in the global economy, the crisis in Europe and an uncertain future continued. On the other hand, the Internet shopping market steadily expanded thanks to the spread of smartphones and the rapid increase in purchases by consumers on the Internet.
Despite this environment, the Rakuten Group managed to steadily expand its business thanks to higher value added and convenience in our domestic Internet services, and quickly carried out measures to reorganize our credit card business to reinforce our Internet finance offering. In addition, we accelerated overseas development more swiftly than in 2010, and entered into the eBook market. As a result, annual gross merchandise sales of Rakuten Ichiba surpassed \1 trillion, and the sales, operating income and ordinary profit of the Rakuten Group all achieved the highest levels in our history.
The Internet industry is now facing big changes. 2012 is the ‘opening year of our true globalization’, and using the unique know-how of our domestic business model and our corporate philosophy of ‘Empowering Society’, we are speeding up our globalization, and working towards constructing a core global management platform.
I look forward to the continued support of our shareholders and investors. |
Chairman and CEO
Tokyo, Japan |
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