Rakuten and AST SpaceMobile Are Building a Joint Venture to Beam Broadband Directly to Japanese Smartphones
Rakuten Group and AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS) are moving their partnership into a more permanent structure. According to a Nikkei report, Rakuten plans to form a joint venture in Japan with AST SpaceMobile this year to manage satellite operations and provide direct-to-smartphone connectivity services. The JV will purchase and operate satellites, enabling Rakuten to compete with Japanese telecom carriers that offer similar satellite-based services.
The two companies have been building toward this moment since 2020. Their goal is to provide direct satellite-to-mobile services covering not just text messaging but full broadband communication voice calls, video calls and more on commercially available smartphones, without requiring any new hardware. Commercial launch is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026, using AST’s LEO BlueBird satellites and standard smartphones.
A Strategy Designed to Pull in More Carriers
The Japan JV is not just a bilateral deal it is a template. The structure mirrors AST SpaceMobile’s broader carrier joint venture playbook, and the design leaves the door open for other Japanese mobile network operators to eventually join the ecosystem. That matters in a market where coverage gaps are not a minor inconvenience. Japan faces a high risk of natural disasters and has many remote islands and mountainous regions where standard ground-based communications consistently fall short. The Noto Peninsula Earthquake of 2024 made that painfully clear.
In April 2025, Rakuten Mobile and AST SpaceMobile completed the first-ever broadband video call between unmodified smartphones in Japan using a low Earth orbit satellite a proof of concept that removed most of the remaining technical doubt.
On the hardware side, AST SpaceMobile recently achieved peak download speeds of 98.9 Mbps using its in-orbit Block 1 BlueBird satellite, with next-generation satellites expected to nearly double that figure. For investors watching the satellite-to-smartphone space, the Rakuten JV signals that ASTS is no longer just a network builder it is becoming an infrastructure operator with a replicable commercial mode.
