While the Japanese music industry ended last year on a promise of change, 2013 has highlighted a few of the ingrained practices that are going to be a little bit more difficult to dislodge.
One industry story that caught the interest of the international press was the news that Japan had overtaken the U.S. as the world¡¯s largest music market. Indeed, the domestic music business in 2012 actually registered a small rise on the previous year, thanks largely to a massive surge in singles sales driven by fans of idol groups as well as a confluence of comeback albums and greatest hits compilations released by golden oldies.
Combined with that was a collapse in digital sales that seems to have been driven largely by a boom in smartphone use. Recent shifts in smartphone use devastated the old mobile music download market, forcing retailers that had become reliant on consumers¡¯ music downloads to compete with a growing apps market at a time when smartphone users¡¯ incomes were stagnating.
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