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Oricon: Manga Volume Sales Dipped 1.5% in Japan in 2012
posted on by Egan Loo
The market research firm Oricon reported that sales of compiled book volumes (tankōbon) of manga dipped 1.5% to 267.5 billion yen (about US$2.886 billion) in 2012, compared to the year before. This is the first recorded sales drop since Oricon began taking annual statistics on book sales in Japan in 2009.
Sales of compiled book volumes of manga totaled 270.31 billion yen in 2009, 270.67 billion in 2010, and 271.71 billion yen in 2011.
According to Oricon, overall book sales also dropped 5.4% from 1.112 trillion yen to 1.0528 trillion yen (US$11.359 billion). This is the three straight annual drop, and the first time that the total went below 1.1 trillion yen. Bunko (trade paperback book) sales also fell 2.1% to 128.5 billion yen (US$1.386 billion)
For 2012, Oricon surveyed sales in the 52 weeks from January 2, 2012 to December 30, 2012. For 2011, Oricon surveyed sales in the 53 weeks from December 27, 2010 to January 1, 2012.
For the second year, Shueisha was the publisher with the highest market share with 14.5% of the overall books sold (178,210,000 books). Its market share dipped by 0.2 points compared to 2011. Kodansha increased its market share by 0.1 points to 10.8%, and Shogakukan rounded out the top three with 7.9% (an increase of 0.5 points).
Source: Sankei
