Skip to content 
The anime industry achieved record-breaking growth in 2023, with the overseas market surpassing Japan in total market share.
According to the Association of Japanese Animations’ (AJA) Anime Industry Report 2024, the industry grew by 14.3% year-on-year (YOY), reaching a total market size of 3.3465 trillion yen (approximately US$21.27 billion).
This marked the highest growth rate and market value recorded since the AJA began tracking the industry in 2002.
This figure surpasses the previous record of 2.9277 trillion yen (US$18.61 billion) set in 2022.
This upward trend in market size follows steady growth over the past two decades, with a notable surge in 2020 fueled by pandemic-driven demand for streaming content.
Additionally, the anime production market value was 427.2 billion yen (US$2.71 billion) in 2023, reflecting a 25.4% increase compared to 2021.
This represents the investment and revenue tied directly to anime production studios and companies responsible for creating the content, ignoring downstream revenues including merchandise, licensing, streaming, etc.
Overseas market domination:
A significant portion of this revenue, 51.5%, originated from overseas markets effectively overtaking the domestic one.
The foreign market grew to 1.7222 trillion yen (US$10.94 billion), an 18.02% rise from the previous year. Meanwhile, the domestic market grew by 10.6%, reaching 1.6243 trillion yen (US$10.32 billion).
North America and Asia were key drivers of the foreign market’s growth, accounting for 72% of global revenue, equivalent to US$14.3 billion.
Interestingly, this is not the first time the overseas market has overtaken the domestic market. In 2020, the foreign market exceeded the domestic market for the first time, but Japan regained leadership in 2021 and 2022.
| Year | Foreign Market Revenue | Domestic Market Revenue | Total Market Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | ¥1.2394 trillion | ¥1.1867 trillion | ¥2.4261 trillion |
| 2021 | ¥1.3535 trillion | ¥1.3871 trillion | ¥2.7406 trillion |
| 2022 | ¥1.4592 trillion | ¥1.4685 trillion | ¥2.9277 trillion |
| 2023 | ¥1.7222 trillion | ¥1.6243 trillion | ¥3.3465 trillion |
Streaming as a growth engine:
Streaming revenue also played a pivotal role in the anime industry’s market growth. In fact, anime generated 6 percent of the overall streaming revenue.
North America alone contributed US$2.2 billion, representing 41% of global anime streaming revenue, while Asia generated US$1.6 billion, accounting for 29%.
According to Parrot Analytics, Netflix alone earned $2.07 billion from anime in 2023, outpacing Crunchyroll and Hulu, which generated $1.16 billion and $903 million, respectively.
In the first half of 2023 alone, Netflix users streamed 3.5 billion hours of anime.
Crunchyroll, despite losing out to Netflix, remained the leader in revenue per subscriber. It boasted 15 million subscribers by August 2024 (up from 5 million in early 2021) and 120 million registered users.
Its app revenue grew by 34% to $282 million between April 2023-March 2024.
The growth in anime viewership and revenue is attributed partly to increased global interest following the 2020 COVID pandemic.
Cool, i like that type of news. Keep up good work my niggas
Cool, i like that type of news. Keep up good work my niggas