The market size for the licensed character business (total of merchandising rights and copy rights revenue) in 2008 was 2,463 billion yen, 97.8% of the previous year. The business of the manufacturers and distributors as well as consumer behavior being influenced by the drastic change in economic environment since the second half of 2008 in addition to flood of characters in the market and change in consumers taste and preference, the size of the market is on the downward trend.

Our consumer survey, as a part of this study, showed that "Disney characters (e.g. Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Lilo & Stitch, etc." were ranked top for the most favorite characters and selected by 19.2% of the respondents, followed by "Sanrio characters (Hello Kitty, Cinamoroll, etc.)" with percentage ratio of 5.3%, "Peanuts (Snoopy)" with 5.0% and "Rilakkuma" with 3.6%.

We estimated the market size for the licensed character business in 2008 to be 2,463 billion yen, 97.8% year-on-year. The market size has been on the downward trend after it reached the peak in 2005, and this trend of negative growth is expected to continue, and the market size is forecasted to shrink in also 2009 to 2,405.5 billion yen, 97.5% of the previous year.

The market of the licensed character business is roughly divided into two categories, the merchandising right*¹ business and the copyright*² business, and the merchandising right business accounts for 49.5% of the total licensed character business. Looking at the market by merchandise category, "toys" have the largest share of 45.7%. However, the share of the "toys" has been declining year by year.

The low birth rate greatly affects the decreasing trends of the market for the licensed character business since children are the major target in this business. In this regards, revival of the characters introduced or televised in the past and development of movies and cartoons that could also entertain adults have been lately done, and the presence of the characters loved by two generations, parents and children, has been prominent nowadays.

As for the question about whether or not the respondents like cartoon characters, the total of those who chose "I like many different characters" and "I like specific characters only" reached approx 60%. And, the survey results showed that there was a tendency that the younger the respondents' generations, the more they like characters and women tend to like characters more than men do.

Our consumer survey, as a part of this study, showed that "Disney characters (e.g. Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Lilo & Stitch, etc." were ranked top for the most favorite characters and selected by 19.2% of the respondents, followed by "Sanrio characters (Hello Kitty, Cinamoroll, etc.)" with percentage ratio of 5.3%, "Peanuts (Snoopy)" with 5.0% and "Rilakkuma" with 3.6%.

The ratio of men who chose "Disney characters" as their most favorite characters was 20% and that of women was 80%. As for the trend by age group, approximately 80% of those who liked "Disney characters" most consisted of those who are in their teens to forties, which proved the "Disney characters" are supported by wide range of age groups.