Rakuten Group Logs 1st Jan.-June Operating Profit in 7 Yrs

Tokyo, Aug. 10 (Jiji Press)--Major Japanese e-commerce and mobile phone operator Rakuten Group Inc. on Monday posted its first January-June consolidated operating profit in seven years.

Its operating profit came to 50.4 billion yen in the first-half period, against a loss of 6.6 billion yen a year earlier, driven by strengths in its online shopping and financial operations as well as a smaller loss at its mobile phone business.

The group's net loss shrank significantly year on year, from 124.4 billion yen to 10.9 billion yen.

Rakuten Group's adjusted operating profits increased 54.8 pct at the online shopping business and 46.6 pct at the financial business. The adjusted operating loss at the mobile phone operations narrowed to 92.2 billion yen from 104.8 billion yen.

The number of mobile phone subscriptions as of the end of June rose about 20 pct from a year before to 10.75 million.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]