In its 13 years of existence, Japan's Rakuten has expanded from online shopping into everything from credit cards and stockbroking to golf tee-time reservations and even a professional baseball team.
So when president Hiroshi Mikitani says that he plans to expand into 27 foreign markets – 10 of them by the end of this year – he deserves to be taken seriously.
Rakuten's overseas push is part of a growing trend by Asian internet companies to expand abroad as their domestic growth starts to slow down. But in spite of the vaulting ambitions of Asia's young internet billionaires, cultural barriers and entrenched local competition may prove impossible to overcome.
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