Mobile music downloads brought $278.5m in sales in 2005

According to the latest report from the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ), mobile downloads dominated Japan’s market of digital music distribution in 2005, claiming 258 millions or 96.4% of total music downloads. The Internet held the mere 3.5% of the market share, recording only 9.5 million downloads.

Music downloads via Internet generated 1,850,620,000 yen ($15.9m) in terms of revenue, while mobile downloads accounted for 32,339,996,000 yen ($278.5m).

The data from RIAJ highlights the known trend that Japanese consumers prefer connecting to the Web from cellphones rather than using PCs.

RIAJ based its report on the data collected from its 41 member and it did not break down single and album downloads, thus the actual number of downloaded songs may be higher than reported. Also, ringtones were included into the total number of downloads and generated revenue.

Source: RIAJ press release (Japanese)