A flywheel of shopping, mobile, and AI

“It’s been 29 years since Rakuten Ichiba started in 1997 as a small shopping mall with 13 stores. Next year we turn 30.”

Standing before merchants at the 2026 Rakuten New Year Conference, Rakuten Group Chairman and CEO Mickey Mikitani reflected on nearly three decades of business growth.

“The first month’s sales were about ¥300,000. I always tell this same story, but I bought about ¥200,000 myself, so real sales were maybe ¥100,000,” he joked. “Now our annual revenue is over ¥6 trillion.”

This milestone was reached after years of heavy investment in logistics and delivery satisfaction. But Mikitani made clear that this figure was not the destination.

“Let’s aim big together,” he said. “I want to reach ¥10 trillion in the future. I think it’s absolutely possible. So let’s do it together.”

AI is the lever for the next growth phase

So how does Rakuten plan to reach this ambitious target?

“AI will be critical,” Mikitani told the audience. “It really will decide the outcome.”

As AI capabilities have grown, Rakuten has launched numerous consumer-facing agents, or ‘concierges,’ for different services, such as Rakuten Travel, Rakuten Golf, and Rakuten Ichiba. “Until now, AI would research things or give answers,” he said. “Now it can actually complete transactions for you.”

“Rakuten Ichiba is about walking side by side with merchants, empowering merchants, and connecting them with customers.”
Rakuten Group Chairman and CEO, Mickey Mikitani

Within Rakuten, AI is being used to boost operational efficiency in myriad ways. “We’re developing Rakuten AI with about 800 AI engineers,” he said. “Our employees basically use Rakuten AI all the time. There are around 20,000 AI programs in use across our businesses.”

Mikitani pointed to data showing a widening gap between companies that do and don’t utilize AI tools.

“It’s said that companies using AI grow about 1.7 times faster,” he noted. “Some of you run large companies, some of you are very small. The question is how you can compete with people who are armed with AI.”

This is the driving philosophy behind Rakuten AI for Business, which many companies around Japan have been leveraging since its launch in early 2025.

“It covers real-world store operations, internal documentation, legal paperwork,” he said. “AI can write product descriptions, create images, turn images into videos. It can handle inquiries, analyze store performance, respond to reviews.”

At the same time, Mikitani stressed, it remains important that humans form the core of any service. “AI shouldn’t feel like it’s answering instead of you. It should complement what you do, and sometimes substitute for it,” he said. “People want to interact with people.”

Data as the fuel, mobile the accelerator

“AI is basically an algorithm,” Mikitani told the conference. “The raw material is data. Data is a gold mine.”

Rakuten, he argued, happens to sit atop an unusually deep vein. The ecosystem spans credit cards, banking, payments, travel, golf, online shopping, and much more.

“We have about 45 million monthly active users, and Rakuten Mobile has over 10 million subscribers. I want to get to 20 million as soon as possible,” he said. “That data has been accumulating for over 25 years. By using it properly, we can dramatically improve our services.”

Rakuten’s breadth of data is what sets it apart from other providers of AI services.

“General-purpose AI is great as a dictionary,” he said. “But for shopping, you need tuning. It just wouldn’t make economic sense for us to outsource it all to an external company.”

Mobile, meanwhile, is much more than just a data strategy; it’s a revenue engine for Rakuten Ichiba’s merchants.

“Rakuten Mobile users spend about 50 percent more on Rakuten Ichiba,” Mikitani revealed, pointing to their potential to lift revenue substantially.

At the center of this engine is the Rakuten brand, he summarized. “There’s mobile communication, and around that AI, data, and our member organizations. By leveraging all of this, we make services better for everyone.”

Flywheel of growth

“This journey really has been something we’ve done together with all of you merchants,” Mikitani said. “Rakuten Ichiba is about walking side by side with merchants, empowering merchants, and connecting them with customers.”

Nearly 30 years after 13 merchants opened shop in a small online shopping mall, Rakuten’s business has evolved alongside the technology that powers it. Rakuten is looking to turn shopping, mobile, and AI into one compounding loop: more subscribers, more data, better AI, higher productivity, and stronger merchants.

“We grow stronger together,” he said. “So let’s build that strength, and let’s keep going together.”