In an effort to increase the global presence of the social network innovator Pinterest, the Japanese internet colossus Rakuten has invested around $100m USD towards the picture-sharing board.



E-commerce superpower Rakuten, who also own www.play.com, posted 2011 revenues of$ 4.7 billion with operating profits of approximately $886m, and employs some 10,000 employees worldwide. Presumably aiming to assimilate a large demographic of consumers that currently use photo-sharing mobile app Instagram, Pinterest could yet explode in the lucrative and dynamic Far East markets.
Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten, said: “While some may see e-commerce as a straightforward vending machine-like experience, we believe it is a living process where both retailers and consumers can communicate, discover, and curate to make the experience more entertaining. We see tremendous synergies between Pinterest’s vision and Rakuten’s model for e-commerce. Rakuten looks forward to introducing Pinterest to the Japanese market as well as other markets around the world.”

Emerging statistics show Pinterest to be on a meteoric incline of user growth. Comscore data revealed Pinterest recently hit 11.7 million unique US monthly visitors, crossing the 10 million mark faster than any other standalone site in history. It is not hard to see why social medias are fast attracting the attention of businesses.

Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, added: “Our goal is to help people discover things they love, by connecting people through their shared interests. Bringing Rakuten on board gives us an amazing opportunity to move a step closer to this goal.”