Japan Archives

Japan should look to China for future streaming growth

09/02/2019

Japan should look to China for future streaming growth according to media and technology analysts, MIDiA Research. Despite being the world’s second largest recorded music market accounting for 14% of the global total, Japanese recorded music revenues fell by 3.3% in 2018 (US dollar value) or 1.8% (Yen value). Although streaming was up 30% in 2018, physical sales still accounted for 69% of all revenues. CD sales and monetising fandom One of the major drivers […]

Japanese charts to include streams and downloads

27/12/2018

Japanese charts to include streams and downloads from 19th December 2018. Chart rankings from Oricon, Japan’s official chart organisation, will add the number of CD sales, digital downloads and streams to produce three new weekly charts: a combined single chart a combined album chart a streaming chart The combined singles chart will be calculated using a points system where a CD single will count for 1 point, 2.5 song downloads will equal 1 point and […]

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Rhapsody and Sony Music bring HiRes streaming to Japan

15/12/2018

Rhapsody and Sony Music bring HiRes streaming to Japan using Rhapsody’s ‘Powered by Napster’ platform. The new on demand music service christened ‘mora qualitas’ brings lossless FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) files at 24bit/44.1-96khz (HiRes) and 16bit/44.1khz (CD quality) music streaming to Japan for the first time. Rhapsody International is providing its complete ‘Powered By Napster’ platform including a unique set of systems, tools and APIs to allow Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ) to quickly […]