Music News

Trending on Billboard

In 2025, Universal Music Japan‘s president and CEO, Naoshi Fujikura, was chosen for inclusion in Billboard‘s Global Power Players list for a fifth consecutive time, making this his sixth appearance. In this year’s interview, he talked about the potential that Universal Music companies in other countries see in the Japanese market, the challenges Japan faces, and hits from artists such as Mrs. GREEN APPLE and Fujii Kaze. 

According to IFPI, master recording revenue rose worldwide in 2024 for the 10th consecutive year, but in Japan it fell from last year’s level. This was due to declines in CD album and music video sales that weren’t made up for by digital sales. How do you feel about this? 

To start off with, the fact that the global music market has grown for ten consecutive years is not something to be taken for granted. It’s a wonderful achievement. In 2025, the amount of growth in some of the more developed markets was slower, but the number of subscribers in China grew materially. I think it’s wonderful that we’re seeing continuous worldwide growth, even if the rate of growth varies by country. 

People have pointed out that Japan has been slow to adopt streaming, but attending global conferences, what I’ve seen is that people aren’t looking at the Japanese market as some sort of anomalous far-Eastern market, but instead they’ve started talking about it as a business model that offers valuable insights for the rest of the world. In many countries, streaming is the main revenue source, and companies are competing for market share, but in Japan, physical accounts for 60% of revenue. Streaming co-exists alongside this. So the situation isn’t gloomy, we have also been cultivating a superfan culture for many years. Looking at our artist roster, Mrs. GREEN APPLE is the first artist in Japan whose songs have broken a total of 10 billion streams, but their best hits album, 10, sold over 770,000 copies in its first week. timelesz, who gained a massive buzz from their auditions program ‘timlesz AUDITION PROJECT’ on Netflix and sold roughly 650,000 copies of their album FAM in its first week. I don’t think you can make the sweeping generalization that Japan has been slow in shifting to digital media. 

Another of the pressing issues facing Japan is strengthening its exports. According to the “Export Power” ranking announced by Luminate, in 2024 the No. 1 country was the U.S., followed by the U.K. at No. 2, Canada at No. 3, and South Korea at No. 4. Japan was ranked in 14th place. What difficulties do you think Japan faces with respect to exports? 

I think there has traditionally been a lack of resources and experience in marketing to overseas audiences. There aren’t enough people who can share great artists or pieces of music in an appealing way, using language that resonates with the local markets. We have few experiences of success in creating overseas hits, and I think we need to be more ambitious. But what’s really important is to present songs and artists with universal appeal that transcends language barriers. I think if we do that, it will fling open the door for us. We believe it is only a matter of time though for more Japanese artists to break through globally, and at UMJ we are already turning this into reality with artists like Fujii Kaze, Ado and others. 

Ado appeared in a Billboard US’ podcast, and has also been covered in several articles, right? 

In 2025, Ado went on a tour of 33 countries, bringing a total of over 500,000 people to her shows. Her merchandise is also extremely popular, so her influence on the industry is incalculable. Thanks to the movie ONE PIECE FILM RED, she crossed the language barrier to be an artist that people around the world wanted to hear in person at least once. At her overseas shows, almost all of the audiences were made up of local fans. That impressed on me the fact that global success could be seen not only in winning awards or taking top positions in the charts, but also through this kind of success. 

Right, it can be another kind of record for artists to aim for. On the topic of awards, they’ve announced that the MUSIC AWARDS JAPAN will be held again in 2026. 

We’ve worked with Japanese artists, like Joe Hisaishi, Tomoyasu Hotei, Perfume, and MIYAVI, on their overseas activities. I’m glad to see how the Japanese music industry is coming together now, across company and organization lines, to hold these awards, even receiving government support. The other day, in New York, I met with the representatives of Universal Music Group in different countries, and one of our colleagues from Germany was surprised that this idea became a reality. 

When the winner of the Artist of the Year award was announced, you could be seen cheering behind Mrs. GREEN APPLE. 

I’d actually been watching from the balcony at first. But as the announcement of different winners went on, Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s name wasn’t coming up, so I started to get worried. So when there was a break, I knew I just couldn’t stay up there in the balcony, and I moved near the band. When they announced that Mrs. GREEN APPLE won, I was so surprised and overjoyed that I sprang out of my seat. It was apparently caught on camera. The results are determined by voting, so I couldn’t even guess who might win until right before the results were announced. All that worry just made my happiness all the greater. 

The smile on your face, and the look of relief on the faces of everyone in the band, was really striking. This year Mrs. GREEN APPLE and Fujii Kaze are making big stirs in the charts. In addition to putting out new releases for five straight months, Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s been getting a lot of mass media exposure through an NHK TV series and through movies. Fujii Kaze released a hit album that’s entirely in English. These two artists are using totally different approaches, but they’ve both created hits. What are your feelings on that? 

Fujikura: There’s something that Motoki Ohmori and Fujii Kaze both have in common, which is that they both want to sing where they’re needed. That’s what motivates them. I’m always telling employees to maximize the value of artists. 

As a result of that, for Fujii Kaze, instead of us in Japan approaching overseas labels, we had multiple labels approaching Fujii Kaze and asking to work with him, which led to an agreement being signed. 

In September, Fujii Kaze’s Prema, which is all in English, became a hit with sales of around 200,000 copies. His songs are also all getting heavy streaming plays. It’s been a wonderful success. One of the issues in Japan is a decline in the number of people who listen to international music. I think it’s really significant how he’s opened up a new market, and I’m looking forward to seeing where he goes in the future. 

Fujii Kaze has a lot of fans outside Japan, in Southeast Asia. Was a lot of attention paid to these overseas markets when promoting the new album? 

When “Hachikō” was released on streaming, we held an event, but we held it in Thailand, not Japan. That led to it being shared not only in Thailand but around the world. In the past, not being in Japan on the day of a song’s release would have been unthinkable. But with this many fans now accessible around the world, where you need to be and what you need to do to generate excitement has changed. 

We’re already in the second half of the year. What do you think it will be like? 

I may be repeating myself from previous years, but without good artists, you can’t generate excitement, and you can’t create hit songs. So it’s important not to just get caught up in techniques and monetization. At the heart of it all, you have to have great artists and great music. I want to keep maintaining that philosophy moving forward, as well. 

—This interview by Seiji Isozaki and Naoko Takashima first appeared on Billboard Japan