Online Media Downloads Drop in Japan

For the very first time, online downloads from legal music and video services in Japan has fallen….says the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ).

Just 111.6 million downloads were made during the second quarter….down from 114.3 million in the first quarter.

Okay…I was surprised by that number.

The market had grown quarter on quarter since 2005.

iTunes and Yahoo Music as well as ringtones for mobile phone-based sites all fell.

Single tracks dropped from 6.9 million to 6.3 million.

Ringtones were down 105.

Albums, however, were up to 342,000 from 333,000.

Despite the fall in downloads….revenue was up 0.2% to 17.6 billion ($150 millionish)…a record to date.

That's a record I wish I were able to download.

How many songs did you download in the past three months?