August 27, 2010

By By Rob Schwartz, Tokyo

The Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) has released data for sales of digital music that shows the Internet download market growing. But mobile music slipped back, according to the results for January to June 2010.

Overall the digital music market fell 3% in value compared with the same period last year. The total number of digital units delivered was 222.4 million, down 5% compared to the same period last year.

Total revenue was 43.4 billion yen ($512.2 million), down 3%.

Internet downloads stood at 23.2 million units for the six months, up 2% on the same period from last year. Internet download revenue came in at 5 billion yen ($59 million), up 3% on the first six months of 2009.

The total number of mobile music unit sales was down 6% at 199.1 million and this sector's revenue fell 3% to 37.8 billion yen ($446.1 million).

The market continued to shift away from ringtones, which saw a 17% drop in revenue, while ringback tones saw a 4% gain in value and full track mobile unit sales increased only 1% in value.

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