Hiroshi Mikitani on innovation
From [RNN] Rakuten Symphonyが目指すワンチームの組織づくり · · Rakuten Group Official
“I need to warn you this project is not easy. I know it's not easy because we are climbing up the mountain nobody has ever climbed up. We are changing the society, we are changing the community because eventually by our technology everybody in the world will start enjoying much cheaper, much more flexible network.”
On , Hiroshi Mikitani, Founder & CEO at Rakuten, spoke about innovation during [RNN] Rakuten Symphonyが目指すワンチームの組織づくり on Rakuten Group Official.
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About Hiroshi Mikitani
Hiroshi Mikitani, founder and CEO of Rakuten Group, has been focused on the company's mobile network business and its artificial intelligence strategy. In December 2025, he announced that Rakuten Mobile's subscriber base had surpassed 10 million, a milestone he described as "astronomically large" and previously considered impossible by industry observers. He attributed the achievement to network construction and cooperation with partners, including a roaming service with KDDI. During financial results presentations in 2025 and early 2026, Mikitani reported that Rakuten Mobile achieved full-year profitability at the EBITDA level and that consolidated revenue reached 2.5 trillion yen, marking the 29th consecutive year of revenue growth. He also outlined plans for capital expenditure of over 200 billion yen in fiscal year 2026. Mikitani has also been promoting Rakuten's AI initiatives, including the development of proprietary large language models and an "agentic AI" platform. He stated that the company aims to improve marketing and operational efficiency by 20% each through AI, and noted that Rakuten Mobile's customer service costs had been reduced from approximately $8-9 million per month to $2 million. At industry events such as MWC Barcelona 2025 and IMC 2025, Mikitani emphasized the company's role in democratizing mobile networks through its fully virtualized and open RAN technology, which he said has attracted interest from telecommunications carriers worldwide. He also discussed Rakuten's expansion into satellite communications through a partnership with AST SpaceMobile, and the company's work on deploying its network technology in Ukraine. Separately, Mikitani has been involved with Rakuten Medical, a biotech company developing cancer therapies, where he noted that the company is conducting clinical trials and has treated over 1,000 patients in Japan.