Rakuten Ends 2019 Fiscal Year with Net Loss

Japanese e-commerce and retail firm Rakuten, Inc. spent its fiscal 2019 with struggling figures. It saw ¥72.745 billion in operating income ending December 31, which was a massive 57.3 percent drop year-over-year.

Income before tax declined in overall 2019 with a ¥44.558 billion loss against the ¥165,423 billion achieved in 2018.

Meanwhile, it saw rising revenues in comparison to fiscal 2018. It came in at ¥1.363 trillion, which was 14.7 percent above the previous figure of ¥1.101 trillion.

On Q3, the e-commerce company saw a net loss of ¥14.8 billion for the nine months ended September 30. This was a massive drop year-over-year, with September 2018 reporting ¥107.7 billion.

The company saw a huge fall in Q3 after losses on investments with the ride-sharing giant Lyft. Rakuten wrote off ¥111.2 billion at the time.

In the third quarter, the company reported revenues of ¥905.8 billion, which saw a 14.6 percent growth year-on-year. September 2018 saw ¥790 billion in revenues.

Other Figures

The company’s fintech segment Rakuten Securities saw higher figures, however. It earned revenues of ¥486.372 billion, 1.46 percent higher than the ¥424.488 billion earned in 2018.

Profit saw a 2.1 percent yearly growth for the segment, reaching ¥69.396 billion ending December 31, 2019.

Although Rakuten Securities saw an uptick for revenues, its securities service, revenue, and income declined annually. Reduced commissions from slow domestic markets affected most of the change.

In the third quarter, the fintech segment reported ¥354 in revenue. This was 13 percent higher than revenues gained a year before.

Segment profit saw ¥50.9 million, which was 1.9 percent higher than the previous year. The same nine-month period of 2018 had a segment profit of ¥51.9 million.

The Rakuten Wallet enabled users to convert Rakuten Group’s loyalty points to digital assets in December. Super Points can be converted into Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash.