 ©ITmedia Statistics published by the Institute for Publication Science (IPS) in Japan show digital sales of individual manga volumes (tankoubon) exceeded print sales in 2017, marking the first time that the tankobon market has shifted in favor of digital.   While overall manga sales decreased to ¥433.0 billion in 2017, down 2.8% from ¥445.4 billion in 2016 (charted), digital tankobon sales increased by 17.2%, from ¥146.0 billion to ¥171.1 billion. It should be noted that combined print sales of tankoubon and manga magazines, totaling ¥258.3 billion, still dwarfed combined digital sales due to the massive gap between print and digital magazines. Print magazine sales totaled ¥91.7 billion in 2017, compared to ¥3.6 billion in digital. It is unlikely digital magazine sales will surpass print sales soon, but the combined digital market could surpass print as it trends upward. Total digital sales have nearly doubled since 2014, while total print sales fell for the 16th consecutive year. The IPS believes this past year's decline was due to the completion of many popular print titles, as well as niche genres like boys' love and teen love being more readily available online. The top ten manga in total print volumes sold in 2017 was consistent with 2016. Only Ansatsu Kyoushitsu dropped out in 2017 due to its conclusion, with Magi taking its place and rounding out the top ten. However, overall sales fell by 3,262,676 total volumes in the top ten. Some manga with consistent tankobon print releases, such as Nanatsu no Taizai and Haikyuu!!, saw plummeting sales that could be attributed to neither series having an anime adaptation air in 2017. Further analysis on a case-by-case basis is unlikely to prove 2017 an anomaly, as evidence from sales in other industries indicate this is the product of a widespread jump to digital. Sales of print publications, in general, fell 6.9% in 2017, marking their 13th consecutive year in decline, while e-book sales increased 16%. The number of combined DVD and Blu-ray units sold also dropped by 10% as streaming continues to gain popularity. Source: AJPEA, ITmedia, Anime! Anime! Biz Thanks to keragamming for the news tip. |
ImperfectBlueMar 1, 2018 3:28 AM
| weekly/yearly manga rankings should include digital sales already too, or its included already and im wrong? |
isekai said: weekly/yearly manga rankings should include digital sales already too, or its included already and im wrong? Digital sales are NOT* included in the rankings. I'm dumb. But still, the significance here is that, for individual volumes (tankobon), digital sales exceeded print sales for the first time. Ever. Overall print sales are still ahead of digital sales with magazines included, something a couple other articles failed to mention. |
ImperfectBlueFeb 28, 2018 4:45 PM
| I can't wait for the time when the Manga industry introduces lootboxes in the digital purchase. |
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| RIP print manga, I saw this coming for a while now. The only issue, is that some publications haven't answered the call yet to go digital. |
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ImperfectBlue said: isekai said: weekly/yearly manga rankings should include digital sales already too, or its included already and im wrong? Digital sales are included in the rankings. The significance here is that, for individual volumes (tankobon), digital sales exceeded print sales for the first time. Ever. no, he mean news teams should report digital sales of manga too, not only rely on oricon physical manga sales report for each particular series and volume each time (either, weekly, monthly, or yearly)... but honestly i doubt it since pretty sure no one already done that? _____________________ most magazine is go full website release or digital with phone aps release nowdays... another consideration to get rid physyical printing database limitation... but i doubt mod database has enough man power to do that? |
 "If taking responsibility for a mistake that cannot be undone means death, it's not that hard to die. At least, not as hard as to live on." |
| so we already reached this point, I thought it's going to take several more years for that to happen. and wow...so the weekly and yearly manga sales rankings from Oricon includes the digital sales too?! I always thought It only reports the physical sales and that's why every series seems to be declining in sales, but I guess both digital and physical are declining. |
ImperfectBlue said: isekai said: weekly/yearly manga rankings should include digital sales already too, or its included already and im wrong? Digital sales are included in the rankings. The significance here is that, for individual volumes (tankobon), digital sales exceeded print sales for the first time. Ever. It actually does not include the digital volume sales in the weekly, or yearly sales. Digital sales are not counted with physical, and that is what we all want. nemya said: so we already reached this point, I thought it's going to take several more years for that to happen. and wow...so the weekly and yearly manga sales rankings from Oricon includes the digital sales too?! I always thought It only reports the physical sales and that's why every series seems to be declining in sales, but I guess both digital and physical are declining. It does not include the digital volune sales. |
| My bad guys! I got the talks of revamping the Oricon rankings mixed up with the last two rankings. It's been removed. They only include print sales. |
| @ImperfectBlue @keragamming oh ok, it did sound strange... well, nevermind then. I really hope digital sales becomes Viewable for us someday. |
| All I hope, honestly is that printed volumes dont dissapear as a whole, considering im more of a solid copy type of person vs a digital copy type, idk if im making sense or not, srry if im not being clear right now... |
| Anyway congrats being a News Mod! Aside from that the pics are in Japanese... Sadly, I cannot understand that. Anyway, on the bright side, will Japan move to digital copy or not? |
| Not really surprising to be honest. It still boggles my mind CDs are still a thing in Japan. Just fully embrace digital distribution already. |
ImperfectBlue said: isekai said: weekly/yearly manga rankings should include digital sales already too, or its included already and im wrong? Digital sales are NOT* included in the rankings. I'm dumb. But still, the significance here is that, for individual volumes (tankobon), digital sales exceeded print sales for the first time. Ever. Overall print sales are still ahead of digital sales with magazines included, something a couple other articles failed to mention. aight thanks for the info man |
| Thanks @_Ako_! Will do my best. And I totally get you, @Klefki_of_Awsome. I don't think print is going anywhere soon as there are still plenty of people who prefer having a physical copy. I don't even read manga and I have a few physical copies haha. Though I would prefer physical to digital, I appreciate what digital brings to the table in terms of affordability and ease of distribution (and probably other things that I would know if I read manga haha). |
| Now if they only dual release all the digital series in english. |
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| Honestly prefer print in general both for Manga and readable material so I hope this doesn't lead to the death of print publishing. I need paper in my hand.... |
| The problem is I ran out of space to store my manga (or book in general), it takes 2 large room to store them (3 if I count my bedroom) and it seems unlikely I will build another room just to store new books. So lately I buy my manga digitaly except for some fav series and/or limited edition releases. |
_Ako_ said: complitely? look like not gonna happen anytime soon... but most big magazine already release apps where you can purchase the magazine or particular manga volume digitally... shueisha has shounen jump +, kodansha has manga pockets, shogakukan has manga one, ETC.... probably, physical manga volume will turn out to be some pricy collector thing...Anyway congrats being a News Mod! Aside from that the pics are in Japanese... Sadly, I cannot understand that. Anyway, on the bright side, will Japan move to digital copy or not? |
KumaFeb 28, 2018 10:48 PM
"If taking responsibility for a mistake that cannot be undone means death, it's not that hard to die. At least, not as hard as to live on." |
Kuma said: ImperfectBlue said: Digital sales are included in the rankings. The significance here is that, for individual volumes (tankobon), digital sales exceeded print sales for the first time. Ever. no, he mean news teams should report digital sales of manga too, not only rely on oricon physical manga sales report for each particular series and volume each time (either, weekly, monthly, or yearly)... but honestly i doubt it since pretty sure no one already done that? There are digital sales rankings but I don't know of any that put actual figures to them. There also aren't any regular rankings that could give us weekly/monthly sales ranks which capture a large number of retailers in the way that Oricon does with physical sales, and most are specific to a single retailer. True, but it would be good to have digital sales figures as well as physical ones. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
kuuderes_shadow said: can you give example from those? look interesting...Kuma said: no, he mean news teams should report digital sales of manga too, not only rely on oricon physical manga sales report for each particular series and volume each time (either, weekly, monthly, or yearly)... but honestly i doubt it since pretty sure no one already done that? There are digital sales rankings but I don't know of any that put actual figures to them. There also aren't any regular rankings that could give us weekly/monthly sales ranks which capture a large number of retailers in the way that Oricon does with physical sales, and most are specific to a single retailer |
"If taking responsibility for a mistake that cannot be undone means death, it's not that hard to die. At least, not as hard as to live on." |
| Now if the anime industry also goes more digital and reduces the prices, maybe more people in Japan will buy anime titles, rather than just the most loyal fans. |
Kuma said: kuuderes_shadow said: can you give example from those? look interesting...There are digital sales rankings but I don't know of any that put actual figures to them. There also aren't any regular rankings that could give us weekly/monthly sales ranks which capture a large number of retailers in the way that Oricon does with physical sales, and most are specific to a single retailer Generally just retailer rankings like those on bookwalker or honto or amazon or whatever. Someone posted a collated ranking on refugee-chan a couple of times a year or so back but not since and it was never regular (and it was for light novels anyway - I'd be surprised if something like that existed on a regular basis for manga and I hadn't stumbled across it by accident though). |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
kuuderes_shadow said: Kuma said: can you give example from those? look interesting... Generally just retailer rankings like those on bookwalker or honto or amazon or whatever. Someone posted a collated ranking on refugee-chan a couple of times a year or so back but not since and it was never regular (and it was for light novels anyway - I'd be surprised if something like that existed on a regular basis for manga and I hadn't stumbled across it by accident though). then yeah, looks very unlikely... most of them anounced by the series it self rather than accumulated then published... |
"If taking responsibility for a mistake that cannot be undone means death, it's not that hard to die. At least, not as hard as to live on." |
orkuncan said: For some dudes who couldnt figure out conclusion: Probably in 15 years magazines will be dead, not only manga. İn 40 years, everything print will be dead. This is just a replacement. Edit: Much funny thing is that those products didnt start with internet sites and smart phones, for anybody who has interest in both cogs of modern bussiness administration and history of printed press and entertainment, those times are gold, dig as much as you can. No print, no magazine at all but you see books in phones, damn. So regards sales numbers we not gonna see that much print later. Have image of a printed press in your mind grandchildren are gonna ask bros and sis :D E-books reached 50% of the adult fiction market (by volume, not by value) in the US in late 2012, and the internet was awash with cconfident predictions that e-books would overtake the print market by value as a whole in either 2017 or 2018, and that physical books' days were numbered. Now here we are in 2018, and print's share of both the fiction market (where it has returned to being a minority, although a very large one) and overall market has increased for 3 years in a row. E-book's share of the total book market by value last year was only around 20% - and among traditional publishers it had dropped from a little over a quarter at its peak to a little over a sixth last year, with physical books taking up most of this drop. Some sections of the physical publishing industry may cease to exist, and magazines are one of the more likely ones - but the drop in the value of adverts is a bigger threat than the loss of circulation (indeed certain sectors of the magazine market have seen their circulation go up in recent years, although the overall trend is downwards). A new technology may come along which eliminates the print book entirely, but that technology is very definitely not the e-book. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
orkuncan said: kuuderes_shadow said: E-books reached 50% of the adult fiction market (by volume, not by value) in the US in late 2012, and the internet was awash with cconfident predictions that e-books would overtake the print market by value as a whole in either 2017 or 2018, and that physical books' days were numbered. Now here we are in 2018, and print's share of both the fiction market (where it has returned to being a minority, although a very large one) and overall market has increased for 3 years in a row. E-book's share of the total book market by value last year was only around 20% - and among traditional publishers it had dropped from a little over a quarter at its peak to a little over a sixth last year, with physical books taking up most of this drop. Some sections of the physical publishing industry may cease to exist, and magazines are one of the more likely ones - but the drop in the value of adverts is a bigger threat than the loss of circulation (indeed certain sectors of the magazine market have seen their circulation go up in recent years, although the overall trend is downwards). A new technology may come along which eliminates the print book entirely, but that technology is very definitely not the e-book. So you tell me financially it may seem equal but taste of print is different and people will always search for that? İ really couldnt understand your point I wasn't giving any reasons why things have happened as they have - these are myriad, can be read up on elsewhere, and are not particularly important to the topic at hand anyway. An industry whose market share stopped increasing several years ago whilst still remaining a minority is not one on course to dominate it to such an extent that the industry that still makes up a considerable and increasing majority of the market is about to be wiped out by it. Japan has so far followed several years behind the English-speaking world. In the US or UK this sort of news article would have come out 5 years ago - and such articles did come out in large numbers. But then the rapid growth in ebooks stopped and even seems to be going backwards slightly. Will Japan follow the same trend? I don't know. But it isn't going to kill off the physical book any time soon. Those are the points I was making. |
| There is no such thing as shit taste. Only idiots who think everyone should have the same taste as they do. |
| I mean, a lot of people love collecting manga in physical form. If I love a series, I'd love to have its actual physical volumes stored in my bookshelf, but that's all, it's not practical anymore (at least for me) to read physical books, it's not convenient and I can't go around in public stuffing all the comic/books I wanna read in my backpack and carry it all day. |
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