Japanese e-commerce major Rakuten to enter India

India’s booming e-commerce sector is set to have a new player. Japan’s largest e-commerce company and Viber chat app owner, Rakuten has opened a business office in Bengaluru and plans to open an online retail platform in India.

The company is appointing midlevel managers from two e-commerce majors - Flipkart and Amazon, according to media reports.

Rakuten which opened a development centre in Bengaluru in 2014, has established a business office in the city and started poaching midlevel managers from Flipkart and Amazon for setting up an online retail platform in India, the reports say.

Rakuten which launched in 1997 as a small online marketplace with half-a-dozen employees, now employs more than 12,000 with sales of over $5 billion. It accounts for more than a quarter of Japan’s e-commerce business, ahead of Amazon in that country. It also has interests in financial services, digital content and travel businesses.

The India business would form part of Rakuten’s expansion strategy. In 2010, it acquired Buy.com in the US in a $250-million all-cash deal as part of its push into North America.

A Rakuten spokesperson declined to comment on developments in India.