Japan’s listeners have been resistant to adopting digital options for music, but the first half of 2015 revealed some progress for streaming in the country. Streaming subscriptions increased 43% in the first six months of the year to 5.04 billion yen ($42 million).
Although that’s a sizeable spike for streaming, that sector only generated 3% of Japan’s overall music industry revenue for H1. The whole recorded music field saw revenue increase 1.1% in the half to 152.29 billion yen ($1.27 billion). Physical music sales still hold 85% of total revenue, and that metric did rise to 129.4 billion yen in this half, compared with 128.8 billion yen in the year-ago period.
The first half figures mark an encouraging turnaround for Japan, which reported a decline in sales for all of 2014.