Paid streaming services continue to rise, with slight increase in physical disc sales

The Japan Video Software Association (JVA), The Digital Entertainment Group Japan (DEG Japan), and Institute for the Arts (IFA) released a report on Thursday about the home video market and user trends in Japan in 2018.

The report stated that Japan's total paid content market — comprised of DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales, home video rental sales, and paid video streaming — reached 562.8 billion yen (about US$5.087 billion) in 2018. The figure represented an 8.0% increase from the total of 521.3 billion yen (about US$4.712) in 2017. The 2018 total was the highest since the video streaming market total began to be recorded in 2013, and the highest overall since 2010.

The expansion of the paid streaming market, including subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services, contributed to the reported growth. The paid video-streaming market reached 198.0 billion yen (about US$1.790 billion) in 2018, a 31.1% increase from 2017. The market more than tripled since records began in 2013.

The DVD and Blu-ray Disc rental market dropped 7.1% in 2018 to 154.2 billion yen (about US$1.393 billion). That total is less than half of the total in 2007, and 2018 also marked the first time that the number was less than paid streaming services.

DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales have been on steady decline in Japan since 2007, and sales have since fallen about 30%. However, sales grew slightly in 2018 to 210.6 billion yen (about US$1.903 billion). The 3% increase marked the first time since 2013 that sales have increased. According to the report, only 15.8% of the populace purchased DVDs and Blu-ray Discs last year.

The percentage of people who used paid streaming services was nearly identical at 16.3% of the population in the recorded data. The figure was slightly up from the 13.9% in 2017.

JVA reported in March that the anime home video market fell 24.2% in 2018. Of these sales, Blu-ray Disc sales were down 21.1%, and DVD sales were down 34.8%.