Sumitomo Corporation (head office: Chuo-ku, Tokyo, President and CEO: Kuniharu Nakamura), announce that its subsidiary, Soukai Drug Co., Ltd (head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President Noriaki Komori, hereunder "Soukai Drug"), has signed the contract to purchase 100 percent of shares of Akachan House 1.2.3 Co.,Ltd (head office: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President Yasuhiro Yamaguchi, hereunder "ACH") which operates the e-commerce shop Net Baby World, on March 18, 2014, and that it will further expand its e-commerce business.
Soukai Drug is a leading e-commerce company which sells over 140,000 household items, such as mineral water, health-related products, cleaning supplies, beauty-related electronics, and kitchen-related electronics. Since Sumitomo Corporation entered the business in 2004, Soukai Drug has achieved annual sales growth of 20-30 percent each year, and has been awarded prestigious recognition in the Japanese e-commerce industry, such as 1st place of the Rakuten Ichiba Shop of the Year (Note 1) for 5 consecutive years, and consecutive awards of the Yahoo! Shopping "Best store of the year" and the DeNA shopping "Best shop award."
ACH began as a retail store in 1991 and entered the e-commerce industry in 2005 as Net Baby World, and has grown into one of the biggest baby-goods e-commerce shop in Japan. Its recent annual sales growth has been over 20 percent annually, and it has also been recognized in the baby-goods e-commerce industry through awards such as 1st place of kids, baby and maternity segment for 7 consecutive years and 8th place of all stores for 2013 in the Rakuten Shop of the Year ranking, and awards in the Yahoo! Shopping "Best store of the year", Ponpare mall "Best shop of the year" rankings.
The baby-goods market has been said to be over 2.7 trillion yen, and the two companies have each been growing their business in this market; ACH through goods such as baby carriers and baby beds, and Soukai Drug through milk products, diapers, and other baby-related consumer goods. The e-commerce industry is known to be highly compatible with people during maternity and early parenthood, and as the internet-literate generation (those who have been using the internet since childhood) is entering these stages in their life, ACH and Soukai Drug aim to support them.
Soukai Drug will strengthen its customer and supplier network by expanding on its strong business base, and will enter a new market through the acquisition of ACH. Simultaneously, related products handled by Soukai Drug will newly be added to the ACH product line, and through such synergy, the two businesses aim to achieve net sales of 30 billion yen in FY2014. Soukai Drug will speed up its business expansion by actively pursuing additional synergistic M&A opportunities.
Sumitomo Corporation has been actively expanding its e-commerce business, in China and South East Asia, in order to further expand its business base. Through this acquisition, Sumitomo Corporation aims to increase the corporate value of its subsidiary Soukai Drug, grow the network and knowledge base within the company, and further expand its e-commerce business domestically and abroad.
■Company Overview
Company Name
：
Soukai Drug Co., Ltd
Head office
：
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Main business
：
online retailer of food and household goods
Paid-in capital
：
300 million yen
Ownership
：
Sumitomo corporation 94 percent; others 6 percent
Establishment
：
August 2000
URL：http://www.soukai.com/
Company Name
：
Akachan House 1.2.3 Co.,Ltd
Head office
：
Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Main business
：
online retailer of baby related items
Paid-in capital
：
10 million yen
Ownership
：
Yasuhiro Yamaguchi, others
(Note 1) The Rakuten Ichiba (Market) is Japan's largest online mall, with over 41,000 shops.
Sumitomo Corporation is a diversified group organized around 7 areas of activity:
- retail distribution of consumer goods (24.4% of net sales): food products, apparel and accessories, pharmaceuticals, building materials, household and decorative items, etc. The group is also developing a real estate business;
- trading of hydrocarbon, mining, chemicals and electronics products (24%): oil, natural gas, copper, gold, silver, zinc, lead, nickel, coal, iron ore, resins, pesticides, petrochemical products, etc.;
- trading of steel products and non ferrous metals (20%): flat and long steel products, tubular products, aluminum products, titanium, etc.;
- distribution of transportation and construction systems and equipments (15.1%): spatial equipments, landing fields, forest machines, motorcycles, mining operating vehicles, etc.;
- telecommunications and multimedia products and services supplies (8.8%): TV wiring, data communication solutions, film distribution services, mobile telephony, Internet access and computing services;
- development and implementation of civil engineering infrastructures (7.6%): power plants, wastewater treatment units, industrial plants, telecommunications centers, etc. The group is also providing logistics services;
- other (0.1%).
SUMITOMO CORPORATION 
By 
