Ahead of DTW Ignite 2026, we published the Rakuten Symphony 2026 Industry Growth Report. We spent that week in London, talking with press about our core finding: telecom’s growth crisis is a business problem, not a technology one.
The discussions triggered every imaginable question, but across the board everybody agreed.
On the Telecoms.com podcast, hosts Scott Bicheno and Iain Morris concurred with the diagnosis while asserting this is not a new conversation for the industry. The diagnosis isn’t the hard part. The biggest question is why so little has changed if there is wide acknowledgement the problem exists.
If anything, our report underemphasizes one of the most critical issues, which is how small of a share of the customer’s wallet telcos actually hold. It is a portion that no end customer wants to see increase.
The discussion in the report is how to change the lifetime value of a customer without increasing the need to extract more money just for connectivity. This is the next wave of competition the industry faces as connectivity disappears into other business’ economic models. Think Amazon Prime, the customer promise of Amazon, and how shipping moved from a customer line item to being part of the Amazon relationship.
Also: churn reduction isn’t the same as building loyalty
The big swings we have seen coming out of telecom to combat growth challenges have been focused on defending against churn but it is loyalty that moves the needle on economics. Our report doesn’t set out to offer all the answers to the problem but recognizes the potential paths forward demands alignment with this reality.
Telco customer relationships are governed by what subscribers pay, what it costs to acquire them and their lifetime value. Typical metrics like ARPU and churn only measure an operator’s share of the wallet it holds, which is a sliver of what customers spend across dozens of categories every month. We talk about this in the report, underscoring that what we measure matters in the scope of a larger opportunity.
Even the latest splashy loyalty program overhauls appear focused on protecting the sliver instead of reaching for more of the customer wallet. If revenue is capped by what subscribers will spend, room to grow hinges then on customer acquisition cost and lifetime value. In other words, we stop obsessing over how to charge more for a line and turn attention to increasing our value to customers we already serve.
Collaborating more closely with other businesses can pull all three levers at once. Partners who want access to telco customers will help fund their acquisition and reward their loyalty, ultimately lifting lifetime value while reducing the overall cost of the relationship. In this scenario, operators become relevant to more of the customer spend without selling a new gigabyte.
Audited proof the approach works
We share firsthand results of this strategy in action in the report, revealing Rakuten Mobile’s role in supporting the broader Rakuten Group ecosystem. The data is striking:
- Revenue multiplier. Multi-service customers earn up to 13.5x the annual revenue of single-service customers. Three-service customers (e.g., telco, streaming and online bank) earn 13.5x more than single-service customers (i.e., only a telco service).
- Churn eraser. The more services the customers use within the Rakuten ecosystem, the less likely they are to churn. Rakuten reported a 100:1 reduction in customer churn for users of 4+ services within the Rakuten ecosystem compared to single service users.
- Acquisition arbitrage: 75% of new customers are acquired via low-cost entry services with 85% of high-value customers acquired from within the existing customer base (CAC< LTV).
- ARPU growth. Ecosystem ARPU for MNO subscribers with 1+ year tenure grew to JPY 885, compared to JPY 749 at Q1/25.
Changing the conversation
The conversation has to change. We spend so much time talking about the next G or really cool network tech and not enough talking about the customer. Who are they, what do they spend, where are they opening their wallets and how can we become more relevant to them.
In the report, we lay out three business models most operators will choose from: utility, ecosystem or platform. Telcos will need to choose one and focus on being the best at it because standing still is the most expensive option on the table.
The full report has the evidence behind all of this: decades of airline economics showing a path to success, Rakuten own’s data and a starting place for every telco.
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