Shogakukan Surpasses Kodansha as #1 Publisher in Japan

Shogakukan's gross sale last February reached 147 billion yen, beating Kodansha by 1.4 billion yen. As a result, Shogakukan has, for the first time ever, overtaken Kodansha as the number 1 publisher in Japan. According to Asahi Shimbun, Shogakukan's success can be attributed to advertising revenue from women's fasion magazines (such as CanCam) and copyright fee.

As for sales of magazines and books, Kodansha still beats Shogakukan by 10 billion yen. However, when counting earnings from other sales such as advertising fee, dividend from movies, and copyright fee, Shogakukan surpasses Kodansha by 11.3 billion yen.

Comparing gross sales, Shogakukan's sales dropped by 0.8% compared to last year, while Kodansha's sales dropped 5.8%.

Until last year, the publishing business has experienced a decade of recession. Sales dropped and the rate of book returns is still going up. The president of Publishing News Yoshiaki Kiyota said, "Some of the publishers try to seek efficiency in their management, while some try to do everything in day-to-day management. Under these tough circumstances, I think the publishers should reaffirm the meaning of publishing once again. Doraemon was produced by an elementally school children's magazine, a magazine that Shogakukan has continued to publish despite its deficit, now that's a symbolic fact."

Source: Asahi Shimbun

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