Big news! Tencent acquires stake in Japan's Rakuten. Is the e-commerce dream coming true today?

In 2020, the e-commerce industry suddenly became hot. Especially when China controlled the epidemic earlier than other countries and resumed production, cross-border e-commerce became particularly hot, and many powerful companies were eyeing this piece of fat.

Recently, Tencent Group issued an announcement, announcing its investment in Japan's Rakuten, seeking strategic cooperation in the fields of digital entertainment and e-commerce.

As soon as the news came out, many netizens expressed their anger and concern: "We have to be cautious in this cooperation. Doesn't Lotte have a relationship with the THAAD missile?" Some netizens also ridiculed Tencent's e-commerce dream.

But in fact, it was South Korea's Lotte that agreed to the deployment of THAAD , and this time Tencent invested in Japan's Rukuten, which has nothing to do with South Korea's Lotte.

This "Lotte" is not that "Lotte", Japan's Lotte is really wronged

Rukuten is a B2B and B2C shopping platform under Rakuten Corporation. It is the largest shopping platform in Japan, with a market share of 26.8%, which is higher than Amazon. In other words, in Japan, the largest e-commerce shopping platform is Rakuten, not Amazon.

South Korea's Lotte ( LOTTE) is one of the five largest groups in South Korea, and has developed in the fields of retail, food, tourism, petrochemicals, real estate and finance in nearly 20 countries around the world. The only thing the two have in common is the Chinese translation. Internationally, LOTTE is usually used to refer to South Korea's Lotte, and Rakuten is used to refer to Japan's Lotte.

As early as 2017, Japan's Rakuten once posted a Weibo to clarify that it and South Korea's Rakuten are two completely different companies, and have no relationship except for the same Chinese characters. However, even now, Chinese netizens still cannot distinguish them clearly...

A strong alliance may help Tencent realize its 15-year e-commerce dream

As we all know, Tencent has always had an e-commerce dream in mind, especially since Tencent's social traffic has long been the largest in China, and it would be a bit unreasonable not to cash in. In 2005, Tencent launched the C2C e-commerce platform Paipai.com to compete with Taobao, and later launched QQ Mall and QQ Online Shopping, and acquired Yixun.com and Maimaibao.com.

However, Tencent's self-operated e-commerce business has not been going smoothly, and many industry insiders have laughed at it as having "no talent". In desperation, it chose to change its strategy and invested in e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Pinduoduo, intending to find another way to penetrate the e-commerce field.

Although investing in e-commerce can also make Tencent taste the sweetness, the attraction of e-commerce is still too great. Later, Tencent relied on the technology of mini programs and its own social traffic to make the e-commerce dream come true:

After three years, the construction of Tencent's "Mini Program Economic Circle" has begun to show results. In 2019, the transaction volume of mini programs exceeded 800 billion. The 2020 "Code Economic Impact Report" shows that mini programs have become a new online entrance for retail stores, and the overall GMV of industry mini programs has increased by 670% year-on-year.

However, this is only in China. The popularity of cross-border e-commerce in 2020 has also made Tencent turn its attention overseas. According to Japanese media reports, Rakuten plans to issue 211,656,500 shares at a price of 1,145 yen (US$10.5) per share, with a total financing amount of US$2.2 billion.

Japan Post is expected to acquire 131,004,000 shares, accounting for 8.3%, Tencent is expected to acquire 57,382,900 shares, accounting for 3.6%, and US retailer Walmart is expected to acquire 14,536,000 shares, accounting for 0.9%. In the future, Rakuten is expected to have in-depth cooperation with Tencent in cross-border e-commerce imports of Japanese goods (WeChat mini-programs), in-depth cooperation in the game field (IP and authorization, going overseas and introduction), finance and other potential directions.

Tencent's digital entertainment and mini-program technologies can indeed provide considerable assistance to Rakuten Japan. On the other hand, Rakuten Japan also has a very strong appeal and market share in Japan, attaches great importance to product quality, and has attracted a large number of "die-hard fans."

Japan's Rakuten e-commerce has relatively strict requirements for merchants to enter the market. Generally, domestic companies that do not have Japanese companies can choose to enter overseas directly or through operator agents. Its strong categories are fashion clothing , beauty and cosmetics, furniture and home furnishings, daily necessities, etc. 3C electronics have not yet occupied most of the market and have a large room for development.

E-commerce platform

Rakuten

Tencent