Japans Internet Music Market Saw Healthy Growth in Q3
Japan’s Internet music market saw healthy growth in the third quarter of this year but a collapse in the once-mighty ringtone market led to mixed results for the cell phone sector of the country’s digital music industry, according to figures released on Friday.
Total downloads over the Internet and on cell phones totalled 118 million during the July to September period, down 3 percent compared to the same three months of 2007, while revenues grew 11 percent to ¥22 billion, the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) said. The group collects data from most of Japan’s major music publishers.
Growth was strong in the Internet download portion of the market where downloads jumped 30 percent to 10.6 million and revenue surged 49 percent to ¥2.3 billion. The relatively new music video download market more than doubled in size but was still small at 391,000 downloads.