Market Overview

The pachinko equipment market size (the total market size of pachinko machines, pachi-slot machines, and peripheral equipment) in FY2017 ended up at 857,433 million yen, 85.5% of that of the previous fiscal year, a decline by 145,200 million yen, based on the sales values at manufacturers.  The size of the markets by product segment is as follows:  The pachinko machine market reached 515,777 million yen, 98.1% on a year-to-year basis, the pachi-slot machine market 243,408 million yen, 68.1% on a same basis, and the peripheral equipment market 98,248 million yen, 82.4% on a same basis.  The results showed especially significant decline in the pachi-slot machine market.

Out of all the pachinko related markets, the pachinko machine market has maintained about the same size as the previous fiscal year due to the stable sales of key products at each maker. On the other hand, the pachi-slot machine market has recorded tremendous decline.  The backdrop of this was voluntary restraint by the makers in providing those machines that arouse too much passion for gambling which unfortunately led to extreme decline of the operation rate of those machines with diminished gambling element, meaning that the users have avoided playing with such machines.  This has strongly prevented pachinko-parlor operators from investing in pachi-slot machines.  In recent years, the minimum sales per product have rapidly decreased in both pachinko and pachi-slot machines, which has come to preclude the makers from secure profits from a product alone, depending on the products.

Size of the peripheral equipment market used to be about 250,000 million yen in around 2000s, but it has now gone below 100,000 million yen.  The demand for peripheral equipment is often triggered by opening of new pachinko parlors or existing parlors in the wake of refurbishment.  However, according to our research, only 149 parlors have newly opened during FY2017 (i.e., April 2017 to March 2018) the least number ever.  In addition, among the 149 parlors, 120 parlors was just the business transfer so that they did not introduce any new equipment and facilities but used the same old inherited ones.  In such a situation, the peripheral equipment market continues shrinking rapidly.

Noteworthy Topics

In the regulations stipulating the specification of gaming machines revised in February 2018, the machines have come to be allowed to have the functions that can set to six stages of ball winning rates.  By enabling the parlors to control the ball-winning rates just like the case of pachi-slot machines, the parlors are able to provide new ways to entertain pachinko fans.  This can be said as an advantage of new machines under revised rules against the old machines.  In this summer and beyond, it is highly possible for the machines with ball-winning-rate control functions to be the focus of the sales of new pachinko machines.

Research Outline