Play.com bought by Rakuten for £25 million

by Steven Williamson on 21 September 2011, 12:16

Tags: Play.com

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Japanese retailer, Rakuten, who is ranked among the top ten largest Internet companies in the world, has bought U.K Entertainment Store Play.com in a deal worth £25 million.

Rakuten’s online shop is ranked second in Japan with only Yahoo! bringing in more hits, while the Rakuten Group runs businesses ranging from travel operators to consumer credit services.

Rakuten chairman Hiroshi Mikitani explained why it swooped for the UK store: "The UK market is one of Europe's largest and most mature e-commerce markets. Play.com is not only a pioneer in the market, but also one of the UK's most successful e-commerce businesses. We aim to leverage our e-commerce strength and experience to further expand and develop Play.com's business model and channel its loyal user base, merchants, and deep product offerings into Rakuten's global e-commerce network."

The takeover follows the acquisition of German online shopping retailer, Tradoria and the French online electronic commerce website PriceMinister.com.



HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

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£25m actually sounds a little low, thought play were huge.
Think this is why they restyled the site?
oops, sorry, double post.
llololloy
£25m actually sounds a little low, thought play were huge.

You and me both, I thought they were bigger then that as well… Hows that for successful marketing!
with all that stuff for a fiver the postie's gonna have a heart attack when he has to deliver £25m worth of stuff
A bargain if you ask me considering they bought a French ecommerce website for €200m.

Surely Play.com is second only to Amazon in the UK? The UK typically has a higher ecommerce penetration of any other EU country. Although the UK market is very cut throat with extremely tight margins which could bring the price down.

This is coming from someone who works in the multilingual SEO function.