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TweetFacebookAugust 12, 2021 7:00 Weekly Post
[Last Pirate Series 2nd Part 1] NTT Docomo, KDDI, and Softbank led by Masayoshi Son. In the Japanese mobile phone market, the three major carriers known as "three mega" have established their brands. The new entry of "Rakuten Mobile", which tried to break in there, was thought to be "reckless". However, Hiroshi Mikitani, who led Rakuten, was confident. It was an encounter with "a certain man" that triggered the big game. Journalist Yasuyuki Onishi reports on Weekly Post's short-term intensive series "The Last Pirate". (Honorifics omitted in the text)
* * *In February 2018, Rakuten Group Chairman and President Hiroshi Mikitani was in Barcelona, Spain.
Two years ago in 2016, Mikitani became a frequent visitor to the city after becoming the main sponsor of FC Barcelona (Barça), one of the world's leading soccer teams with superstar Lionel Messi. However, the goal of the day was not soccer.
"Mobile World Congress (MWC)". The world's largest mobile phone trade fair, held in Barcelona at this time of year every year, brings together major mobile phone operators and device manufacturers from around the world. It will be officially decided that Rakuten will be assigned a frequency band by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications as an MNO (mobile communication operator with its own line) in April, two months later, but Mikitani will expand his knowledge and connections in the mobile field. So I got into Barcelona.
Verizon of the US and Telefónica of Spain for mobile phone companies, Nokia of Finland and Huawei Technologies of China for communication equipment makers, and Qualcomm and Nvidia for communication semiconductor manufacturers. Mobile phone companies from all over the world set up huge booths in the expansive venue and competed to display their cutting-edge technologies.
Mikitani visited the booths of each company and heard directly from the leaders. When Rakuten made an appointment, most company leaders gave up their time.
"Ah, Rakuten, the sponsor of Barça."
When Rakuten, which is unknown in the telecommunications industry, takes appointments with the leaders of each company, it was very useful to be known as a sponsor of Barça.
During this inspection, there was a company that Mikitani had requested, saying, "I really want to see you." Indian telecom company Reliance Jio. In 2016, India's leading conglomerate Reliance Industries established Jio and entered the mobile phone business. Despite being the last company to start infrastructure development from scratch, it has risen to the third place in the world with more than 400 million subscribers in just four years. Mikitani was fascinated by the overwhelming sense of speed.
Jio's appointment was made by Yasufumi Hirai, who moved to Rakuten from the president of the Japanese subsidiary of Cisco Systems, a major American telecommunications equipment company. I managed to get an interview, and at the Cisco booth at MWC, I met with four or five Jio executives, including the CTO (Chief Technology Officer), who had come to Barcelona.
