Music industry of East Asia

The music industry of East Asia, a region that includes China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan, is a rapidly growing economic sector that is home to some of the world's largest music markets.

In 2003, South Korea became the world's first music market where digital music sales surpassed those of physical formats.

In 2012, Japan surpassed the United States as the world's largest recorded music market for the first time, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Though the U.S. remained the largest if licensing fees are included into the figures. However, in the following year, Japan fell back to the second-largest music market after experiencing a 16.7 per cent decrease due to the country's reliance of CDs and slow adoption of digital services.

In 2015, the digital music market in China is expected to be worth US$2.1 billion. China is expected to become one of the largest music markets in the world by 2020.

Although global physical music sales (such as CDs) have been declining in recent years, in East Asia (particularly Japan and South Korea), however, physical music sales have been rising consistently.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry credits this phenomenon to "K-Pop fans who want high-quality physical formats and deluxe box sets".

According to a music executive from Universal Music Group, CDs are becoming "the new merchandise in Asia".

The following table lists the total revenues of the music markets of East Asia:

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