Rakuten weaves its web internationally. After the acquisition last month of the American Buy.com for $ 250 million and the creation of a joint venture with PT Global Mediacom in Indonesia, the leading Japanese e-commerce has announced Thursday it had acquired all of PriceMinister capital for 200 million euros.
The Japanese offered as a place of choice in a market where e-commerce still has the wind in its sails. Online sales have jumped 30% in France in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the same period of 2009, according to figures from the Federation of e-commerce and distance selling (Fevad).
"This acquisition is a significant step towards achieving our goal of creating a global platform on which consumers can shop, whatever their country of origin," said the Japanese group said in a statement.
International ambitions
If Rakuten has big, PriceMinister take this announcement to reaffirm its own ambitions. "While PriceMinister happened since March on the top step of the podium in terms of audience e-commerce in France, we sought to further influence our development," explains Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, cofounder and CEO of the group, in a statement released Thursday.
The French site, which boasted 11 million members and an offer of nearly 150 million products in March 2010, specifies that the transaction was carried out by the group's European subsidiary, Rakuten Europe. The founders of PriceMinister (Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, Pierre Krings, Justin Ziegler and Olivier Mathiot) "have a commitment for a minimum of five years to support the development of the brand in France and Europe. A period during which the staff of the group should remain in place.
"Rakuten has experience and expertise unmatched in the field of Internet commerce," says Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet. "By combining our respective strengths, PriceMinister will be able to accelerate its growth in France and Europe." If it is already present in Spain and England, and has successfully diversified its business expanding into areas of real estate , email marketing and online travel, the French group is a featherweight against its Japanese rival.
PriceMinister sold well
Rakuten has nearly 64 million members to date and posted sales worth 3.2 billion dollars (2.5 billion euros) in 2009, the group said. In its statement, the Japanese lifted the veil on the financial results of PriceMinister, a secret that the French site had always managed to keep.
Thus, according to Rakuten, PriceMinister recorded a turnover of 39.9 million euros in 2009 against 38.1 million in 2008 (including sales of the subsidiary car-Mixad 321Auto sold in March 2009). The site has also experienced a slight net loss of 105,000 euros last year. In 2008, this loss had reached 9.4 billion euros. Sold for 200 million euros, five times its revenue, PriceMinister has at least made a good deal.
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