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Bookshops Disappearing in Japan: Report

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Tokyo, Japan

According to the All Japan Magazine and Book Publisher’s and Editor’s Association (APJEA), the number of bookshops in Japan has fallen by nearly half from 20,880 in 2004 to 10,918 in March 2024. Moreover, 27.7% of Japan’s 1,741 municipalities do not have a bookshop.

The decline in physical stores has been caused by growing competition from e-commerce and sales of electronic books.

APJEA data shows that sales of printed publications decreased 60% from the peak of 2.66 trillion yen in 1966 to 1.06 trillion yen (S$9.3 billion) in 2023. Meanwhile, sales from online stores have climbed from about 160 billion yen in 2013 to 290 billion yen in 2022.

The Cultural Affairs Agency has released a survey showing that for the first time, most Japanese (62.6%) do not read at least one book a month – whether physical or electronic, excluding magazines and manga. This is a 15.3% increase from the previous survey in 2019.

The January-March poll also found that those who do not read regularly still consume text, through bite-sized social media posts almost daily.

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