Japanese Manga Sales Suffer Largest Decline in History

A new report from the Tokyo-based Research Institute for Publications reveals that Japanese manga magazine and manga book sales dropped 6.6% in 2009, the largest single year decline in the history of Japanese manga publishing. Manga magazine sales, alone, dropped by 9.4% to 191.3 billion yen ($2.12 billion USD), dipping below 200 billion yen in annual sales for the first time in 18 years. Annual printed manga sales peaked at 586 billion yen in 1995. 2009 sales were down to 418.7 billion yen. The decline is blamed on the global economic recession and an absence of new smash hit manga series.

However, Japanese sales of manga distributed via cell phone has regularly experienced double digit annual growth since 2003 when commercial manga distribution via cell phone began. Furthermore, as of 2009 only 13.5% of Japan’s population was under the age of 15, down from a high of 35.4% in 1950.

Source: Anime News Network