PORN BUSINESS BOOMING IN JAPAN

PORN BUSINESS BOOMING IN JAPAN

Unlimited mobile data plans in Japan have unexpectedly fueled a surge in demand for movie downloads and especially adult films, i.e. pornography. Bloomberg News reports that more than 1,000 Japanese adult film companies churned out about 17,000 titles last year. The largest adult-film websites are adding as many as 1,000 new customers a day. One of them, Soft on Demand, generates $160,000 in revenue each month, much of it from mobile sales, according to Hirotaka Ishimori, head of the company's online division. In an interview with Bloomberg Ishimori estimated that total annual Japanese sales of pornographic films is around $1 billion. "We see the mobile phone as potentially a huge market," Ishimori said. "Fixed-rate data plans, faster Internet access and sophisticated handsets are contributing to that growth."

06/07/2009