(Updated on March 25th: MNC confirms the break-up and is now looking to sell its 49 percent share back to Rakuten. The Indonesian company says the reason is that Rakuten and itself have principally different visions for the e-commerce business. It seems the site will remain alive, but it’s not clear how much Rakuten will need to pay MNC for its stake).
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Japan’s Nikkei is reporting that Rakuten’s (JSD:4755) e-commerce efforts in Indonesia are now in doubt with the dissolution of its joint-venture company with Indonesian media company MNC Group. The paper says the MNC split has been confirmed to it by Rakuten. It could well mean the end of the localized Rakuten Belanja Online store that launched in Indonesia in June 2011. We’ve contacted Rakuten Asia for more details and will update if we hear back.
The joint-venture for Indonesia, PT Rakuten-MNC, is split 51-49 in favor of the Japanese e-commerce giant. It’s one of 13 nations where Rakuten operates. In November last year, the site reported having 400 merchants with 300,000 products offered, representing 500 percent growth since it launched.
Shortly after launching in Indonesia, the head of marketing at Rakuten Belanja Online, Doddy B Ekaputra, told us that Rakuten is “striving to be number one in Indonesia” with its open marketplace for merchants. He added that MNC was chosen as a partner because it’s a media company, and “we are aware of how important advertising is, so yes we are going to go all out in advertising.”
Nikkei states that Rakuten and MNC agreed the spilt in February.
This isn’t the first major failure for Rakuten’s overseas ambitions. Its China store was shuttered in April 2012. It was run in partnership with Chinese search engine Baidu, but the store found it tough to compete in China’s mature and intense e-shopping market.
With Rakuten Indonesia out of the picture for now, it leaves Rakuten Ichiba Taiwan the only joint venture effort that’s still alive.
(Thanks to @Hotta for translation help; Source: Nikkei Japanese)
