Washington: Japanese firm Rakuten is set to marry Israeli messaging service provider Viber. The coupling will allow Rakuten to add Viber Group’s nearly 225 million members to its existing user base of 300 million registered users.
Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani hinted that games are part of the company’s plans for Viber and said that he was excited to welcome the messaging service. As Rakuten seeks to become the world’s number one Internet services company, its acquisitions have included e-reading platform Kobo for 315 million dollars, Spanish streaming video service Wuaki.tv and Viki, a global video streaming platform that crowd sources translated subtitles, for a reported 200 million dollars.
The report said that Rakuten’s announcement comes just two days after Viber Media denied a report that it was in talks to be acquired by an instant messaging company from Asia for 300 million to 400 million dollars.