Japanese anime now accounts for 1/3 of domestic video software market

The Japan Video Software Association (JVA) released its "JVA 2013 Year Statistics Results" report on March 17. Sales in the entire video software market had a slight decrease, but sales of domestic anime Blu-ray Disc and DVD sales were strong.

Japanese animation sales rose 6.5% to 78.99 billion yen (about US$768.4 million) in 2013 to its highest total in six years. Sales of foreign animation for the general public and children were 6.191 billion yen (US$60.2 million), and foreign and domestic animation sales combined were 85.17 billion yen (US$828.5 million).

Japanese anime now accounts for one-third of the domestic video software market.

Retail sales of Japanese anime for the general public rose 14.8% compared to 2012 to 61.062 billion yen (US$594 million), with 12,435,495 discs sold (an increase of 23.6%). Conversely, rental store sales fell 1.7% to 13.167 billion yen (US$128.1 million yen).

Video software sales in Japan in 2013 were 251.77 billion yen (US$2.449 billion), a 2.6% decrease over last year. DVD sales were down 12.8% to 162.988 billion yen (US$1.585 billion), and Blu-ray Disc sales were up 24.1% to 88.782 billion yen (US$863.6 million).

Source: animeanime.jp