RIAJ Publishes First Inclusive Estimate of Japan's 2025 Recorded-Music Market at 398.8 Billion Yen — Industry-Wide Visibility and Quarterly Reporting Cycle Mark a New Era

The Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) has officially published its first 'Recorded-Music and Digital-Music Sales Estimate' covering both member and non-member companies for the full year 2025 (January 1 to December 31), estimating Japan's recorded-music market size at 398.8 billion yen. RIAJ plans to publish updated figures on a quarterly basis going forward, marking a design shift toward inclusive industry-wide visibility.

The 'Recorded-Music and Digital-Music Sales Estimate' goes beyond RIAJ's previous practice of publishing only member-company sales data, positioning itself as a first-of-its-kind industry-wide estimate that includes non-member companies and standalone streaming-service revenue. It functions as a higher-order metric distinct from prior RIAJ publications.

From an industry-context view, this estimate addresses a data gap of more than a decade in the streaming-centric era, during which the share and revenue scale of indie-creator activity has been hard to see inside industry accounting. Long-term, industry-wide data that includes indie activity is also expected to function as foundational material for policy debate (copyright-law amendments, subsidy design).

What this means for the music industry is that the explicit move to 'quarterly' publication going forward is also significant. Shifting from year-only industry data to a quarterly update cycle modernizes data freshness and accessibility. For creators, labels, and distribution agents, this aligns the timing of strategic planning with the cadence of industry data release.

From an industry perspective, the 2024 full-year digital-music sales of 123.3 billion yen (eleventh consecutive year of plus-growth) and Q3 2025 digital-music sales of 33.97 billion yen (114% YoY) — with streaming surpassing 31 billion yen on a quarterly basis for the first time — can be cross-read against the new estimate. The combination provides the first complete view of the industry-wide scale that includes indie-share activity.

From the ZEN editorial perspective, the shift of RIAJ accounting design from 'member-only industry data' to an inclusive estimate is a turning point that changes how indie creators see industry data. It also becomes easier to cite 'industry scale' when applying for subsidies or negotiating label sales and sponsorships — a significant data-reference upgrade for indie creators.

Sources: RIAJ press release, RIAJ X (PR account), Musicman, PR TIMES.