JMT Web News

Japan exported a total of 60.3 billion yen worth of musical instruments, parts and accessories in 2020, a 15% decrease over the previous year. But almost all categories went down compared to the year before. While upright & grand piano exports which share the largest value of the total export declined 10%, brass instruments and other wind instruments significantly declined by roughly 30% and 20%, respectively.

5 top categories of upright & grand pianos, reed instruments & other wind instruments, piano parts & accessories, and brass instruments shared 78% of the total exports in 2020, and they all underperformed. Upright piano exports were 20,365 million yen, a 12.4% decline from the previous year, and grand piano exports were 12,002 million yen, a 12.7% decline. Digital piano exports jumped up 234% in unit and 142% in value, largely attributed to soared demands during lockdown worldwide. Reed instruments and other wind instruments also declined about 25.6%.

Electric guitar exports maintained upward trend with 46,000 units, a 16% increase and 3.1 billion yen, a 6% increase over the last year. Since this category includes used guitars, the sizable increase of this category may reflect increased shipment of them through cross-border e-commerce.

Export of the top 5 categories (2020 and 2019)
1.Upright pianos 20.37 (22.87)
2.Grand pianos 12.00 (13.52)
3.Reed instruments and other wind instruments 7.70 (9.67)
4.Piano parts and accessories 3.57 (4.77)
5.Brass instruments 3.36 (5.04)
( in billion yen)

Import trades also went down in many categories from 57.02 billion yen the year before to 47.9 billion yen, or 16% decline, but guitars and other string instruments imports rose 7% to 4.5 billion yen, and 18% to 1.1 billion yen, respectively. Though slightly decreased in value, import of electronic musical instruments with keyboard increased 17% to 770,000 units.
The top 10 import categories share 82% of the total imports.
Import of the top 10 categories (2020 and 2019)
1. Electronic musical instruments with keyboard 10.28 (11.25)
2. Electric guitars 5.97 (6.74)
3. Acoustic guitars 4.49 (4.19)
4. Parts and accessories of other musical instruments 4.42 (5.92)
5. Other wind instruments 3.65 (5.11)
6. Parts and accessories of electric and electronic musical instruments 2.88 (2.89)
7. Piano parts and accessories 2.70 (2.99)
8. Musical instrument strings 1.79 (2.16)
9. Other electronic musical instruments 1.70 (1.31)
10. Brass instruments 1.53 (2.21)
(in billion yen)
As U.K. left EU at the end of January, 2020, the January import and export data of the country are included in EU data.
(Source: Customs Bureau, The Ministry of Finance)