Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has acquired UK online retailer play.com for £25 million. The buyout is the company’s first UK acquisition, after buying several European e-commerce firms, including France-based PriceMinister and Germany-based Tradoria, earlier this year.
Play.com, the CDs, DVDs, clothing and electronics retailer, has 14 million registered users.
Rakuten CEO and chairman Hiroshi Mikitani says: "Play.com is not only a pioneer in the market, but also one of the UK’s most successful ecommerce businesses,” he said. “We aim to leverage our ecommerce 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 ecommerce network."
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