News
Declines in Japan's Video, Anime Sales Slowed in 2009
posted on by Egan Loo
On Wednesday, the Japan Video Software Association announced its survey results on Japanese video software sales from January to December of 2009. The overall market, which includes DVDs, Blu-ray Discs (BDs), UMDs, and video cassettes, amounted to 273.963 billion yen (about US$3.0339 billion). That represents a 4.2% drop from 2008. It was the fifth year in a row that sales dropped; the market's peak was 375.393 billion yen (US$4.1571 billion) in 2004. However, the rate of decline slowed from previous years; the raw number of releases increased for the first time in four years at 2% to 87,839,326 items.
Japanese animation for young adults and adults, such as most late-night television anime — as opposed to Japanese animation aimed strictly for children — made up the largest segment of the entire Japanese video software market (excluding video cassettes) at 28.5%. That represents a 1.4% dip from 2008. While DVD sales in this segment fell 8.1%, Japanese animation Blu-ray Discs for young adults and adults jumped 272.3%.
The market segment of Japanese animation for young adults and adults was split between the three major media formats as: 76.0% on DVD, 23.3% on Blu-ray, and 0.7% on UMD.
Blu-ray Market
Overall Blu-ray sales jumped 246.9% to 24.115 billion yen (US$267.1 million) to partly offset the dip in the DVD market. 94.0% of the Blu-ray market, or 22.659 billion yen (US$250.9 million), went to retail Blu-rays (as opposed to Blu-rays destined for rental shops). A full 52.5% of the retail Blu-ray market was devoted to Japanese animation for young adults and adults. By contrast, Japanese animation for young adults and adults made up only 16.5% of the 1.449 billion yen (US$16.1 million) spent procuring rental Blu-ray Discs.DVD Market
Overall sales of DVDs dropped 9.6% to 249.280 billion yen (US$2.7605 billion). Retail DVDs totaled 155.961 billion yen (US$1.7271 billion), a 11.1% drop from 2008. Japanese animation for young adults and adults made up the biggest segment of this market with 24.8%.92.632 billion yen (US$1.026 billion) was spent procuring rental DVDs, a 6.4% drop from 2008. (The rental DVD market peaked in 2007.) Japanese animation for young adults and adults was the third largest segment (after overseas scripted television series and North American/European films) at 17.5%. The size of this segment dropped 9.8% from the previous year.
Source: animeanime.biz
Update: Fixed references to Blu-rays. Thanks, DavidShallcross.
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