Rakuten has acquired a 100% stake in the Japanese fashion retailing app FRIL. Whilst the value of the deal is undisclosed, Rakuten has bought the popular marketplace app at a time when Japan is seeing a surge in popularity of C2C buying, due to mobile services such as FRIL making transactions simpler. FRIL, which is owned by Fablic, was the first app of its kind to be launched in the Japanese C2C market and has around 5 million total downloads. Meanwhile, Rakuten has recently closed several of its marketplaces outside Japan, and will now focus on taking on the market leader, Mercari, by combining FRIL with its own C2C service Rakuma.Â
