2011 Oricon music industry report: AKB48 achieved 15% market share of singles
This week, Oricon released its annual music market report, which covers sales for singles, albums, DVDs, and Blu-rays. Last month, the company already revealed the rankings for the top-selling artists in various categories, but the new report contains information about the industry as a whole as well. The data also re-confirms the magnitude of idol group AKB48’s success, indicating a 15% market share of the single sales that Oricon tracks.
As announced last month, AKB48′s total artist sales amounted to 16.28 billion yen. This accounted for 5.4% of the entire music market in 2011, which was over 314.1 billion yen. Arashi, who ranked #1 in total artist sales in 2009 and 2010, dropped to #2 in 2011 with a 5.1% share, thanks largely to their 10.17 billion yen in DVD sales.
AKB48 was most successful in the singles category, having released 5 singles that all sold more than a million copies. Their total single sales amounted to nearly 9.59 billion yen, helping push the singles market up 16.9% from the previous year to more than 62.0 billion yen. In other words, AKB48 captured 15.46% of the singles market.
AKB48′s record label, King Records, achieved 21.23 billion yen in sales, up 145.5% from the previous year (14.59 billion yen). This gave them a 6.8% share of the overall market in 2011, putting them in 4th place out of all music companies in the industry. The year before that, they ranked 7th. Counting singles only, King Records held a 20.3% share of the market.
Sony Music Entertainment was #1 for the 3rd year in a row, with total sales of 51.88 billion yen and a 16.5% market share overall. Avex was #2 with 41.66 billion yen and a 13.3% share, and Universal Music ranked #3 with 36.38 billion yen and an 11.6% share.
A separate industry report revealed by the RIAJ on Friday shows that overall music production in 2011 (CDs, DVDs, etc.) grew by 1% from the previous year, after having shrunk for the past 5 years before that. CD single production showed the biggest increase, up 23% to 62 million copies.
source: TOKYOGRAPH