Throughout a convention name to debate the telco’s quarterly outcomes, Rakuten Cellular’s chairman Mickey Mikitani mentioned the corporate will step up the rollout within the second half of the 12 months
In sum – what to know:
2,930 base stations added in Q2 – A part of Rakuten Cellular’s plan to deploy over 10,000 websites in 2025 to enhance protection and capability.
Second consecutive EBITDA-positive quarter – Standalone EBITDA rose by JPY19.1 billion year-on-year to JPY5.6 billion.
Subscriber base nears 9 million – Up from 7.7 million a 12 months earlier, alongside larger ARPU and cell service income progress.
Japanese cell operator Rakuten Cellular put in 2,930 new base stations throughout the second quarter of 2025 as a part of a plan to deploy greater than 10,000 websites this 12 months to enhance protection and improve capability.
Throughout a convention name to debate the telco’s quarterly outcomes, the telco’s chairman Mickey Mikitani mentioned the corporate will step up the rollout within the second half of the 12 months, including that Rakuten Cellular has made “important enhancements in community stability.”
The Japanese operator additionally reported subscriber and income progress in Q2, together with its second consecutive EBITDA-positive quarter.
By the tip of June, the service had practically 9 million subscribers throughout the Asian nation, up from 7.7 million a 12 months earlier. Cellular service income elevated 26.9% to JPY47.7 billion ($323 million), with ARPU up 3.8% to JPY1,773. Whole section income rose 33.5% to JPY90.6 billion.
In the meantime, Rakuten Symphony income climbed 53.8% to JPY18.1 billion, with six new contracts signed within the quarter, together with one with U.S. service AT&T.
Rakuten Cellular has not too long ago named Cisco, Nokia, and F5 as its lead expertise companions for the deployment of its 5G Standalone (SA) community. The Japanese firm says these alliances will “considerably improve its community capabilities, simplify operations via AI-driven programs, and drive innovation” throughout Japan.
The Japanese telco will deploy Cisco’s cell Packet Core Portfolio to allow seamless deployment of 5G providers. The platform guarantees enhanced efficiency and streamlined operations, leveraging AI-driven automation to help dynamic visitors administration and operational simplicity, the telco mentioned.
Nokia will contribute a set of cloud-native community features (CNFs) to help Rakuten’s SA core, together with vital features equivalent to authentication, consumer knowledge administration, signaling, analytics, and IMS voice. The CNFs might be deployed on Rakuten Symphony’s multi-cloud platform, designed to spice up community reliability, scalability, and safety.
F5, a long-standing Rakuten companion for the reason that firm’s early cloud-native launches in 2019, will provide API safety and visitors administration options, in addition to extra CNFs centered on sustaining the steadiness and efficiency of the SA core. The corporate highlighted these features as “essential” for the reliability of Rakuten Cellular’s standalone infrastructure.
Quite than counting on conventional full-stack distributors, the Asian service has pursued a disruptive, cloud-native strategy constructed round its personal Rakuten Symphony platform and modular partnerships with corporations like Cisco, Nokia (CNFs, not full RAN), F5, and NEC. The choice displays each a strategic dedication to Open RAN and software-defined infrastructure, in addition to a enterprise mannequin that positions Rakuten Symphony in direct competitors with distributors like Ericsson, which has taken a extra cautious stance towards open interfaces and multi-vendor integration.
The telco additionally not too long ago launched Rakuten AI, a next-generation agentic AI platform. Now out there by way of the Rakuten Hyperlink app and a standalone internet app (in beta), the assistant leverages multi-modal enter to ship personalised, task-oriented intelligence.
The agentic AI is free to make use of and might be built-in into Rakuten Ichiba, the corporate’s flagship e-commerce market, later this 12 months. The platform is a key a part of Rakuten’s broader push to create a cross-ecosystem AI layer that enhances consumer experiences throughout commerce, cell, and content material.
