Rakuten Group's mobile business has bled money since its network launch, but the rest of the group grew fast enough in the six months to June to swing the whole company back into positive territory before tax for the first time since 2019. Revenue for the period rose 12.9% year-on-year to ¥1.31tn, IFRS operating profit turned to ¥50.44bn from a ¥6.61bn loss a year earlier, and pretax profit reached ¥17.88bn against a ¥66.25bn loss in the same period last year. On the company's preferred non-GAAP measure, which strips out one-off items and share-based pay, operating profit nearly quadrupled to ¥78.33bn.
The figure shareholders actually feel still carries a scar: Rakuten reported a ¥10.94bn net loss attributable to owners of the parent, an improvement from ¥124.44bn a year earlier but a loss all the same. The prior full accounting year ended with a ¥177.9bn loss attributable to those same shareholders, the size of the hole this year's recovery is working against.
Fintech carries the turnaround
Rakuten's finance arm, spanning its card, bank, brokerage, insurance and payment businesses, posted the biggest gain: segment profit rose 46.9% to ¥127.71bn on revenue up 25.1% to ¥570.75bn, helped by wider lending margins after the Bank of Japan's rate rise and growth in Rakuten Card's shopping volumes. Internet services, the e-commerce and travel unit built around Rakuten Ichiba, added ¥44.23bn in profit, up 67.2%, on a 4.1% revenue gain, with inbound travel bookings doing much of the work.
| Segment | H1 2025 Profit/(Loss) | H1 2026 Profit/(Loss) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internet Services | ¥26.46bn | ¥44.23bn | +¥17.77bn (67.2%) |
| Fintech | ¥86.96bn | ¥127.71bn | +¥40.75bn (46.9%) |
| Mobile | -¥88.46bn | -¥71.08bn | +¥17.38bn |
Mobile is still the drag, though a shrinking one. The segment's loss narrowed to ¥71.08bn from ¥88.46bn as subscriber lines kept growing. Rakuten spent more on marketing to push that growth while holding other costs level, which is why the loss shrank rather than reversed.
The bottom line also absorbed one-off charges of ¥18.02bn, including a ¥17bn impairment after Rakuten converted part of its logistics warehouse space from a rental service to in-house use because it could not find enough tenant demand.
Rakuten is telling investors the improvement should continue: it is targeting high-single-digit percentage revenue growth for the full year, alongside pretax and net profitability and a positive non-GAAP operating result. Behind the scenes, the finance businesses are being restructured: Rakuten Bank is set to become the holding company for Rakuten Card and Rakuten Securities Holdings through a share exchange effective October 1, pending regulatory approval, a move the company says will cut funding costs and let the units cross-sell more aggressively. Rakuten expects to book reorganization costs in the third quarter before any synergies show up.