KADOKAWA ANNUAL REPORT 2004

Since its establishment in 1945, Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. has brought out wide variety of publications as a traditional publishing company. Its publications cover broad range of literary products such as the literary works, for instance the classic and modern best-seller books written by the entertainment writers, nonfiction stories, paperback pocket editions and dictionaries. Many of the story contents, which constitute the core of the media-mix that Kadokawa Shoten is good at, are borne from the publication business. Although the media-mix based on the diversification of popular literary works to other products such as movies, comics and merchandise articles is not so uncommon nowadays, it is rare even worldwide that one corporate group is covering all of them.
The Kadokawa Bunko paperback pocket editions celebrate the 55th anniversary and have grown up to be comparable to the Penguin Books of UK, as the accumulated number of issues reaches to 13,000 titles. The series of editions cover the latest best-sellers as well as the long-sellers in the categories of domestic and overseas popular novels, classics, philosophy and religion books, and is offered in convenient manner and at low price. Kadokawa Bunko has become an established comprehensive publication of the literary collections covering wide range of genre and matching the needs of the time. Kadokawa Shoten held the long lasting event of “Discovery – Kadokawa Bunko Campaign” in the summer of 2004 and has published “Kadokawa One Theme 21” series productions in wide range of genre, which are attracting the readers under the favorable up-turn of the popularity of paperback pocket editions.
The group is also actively promoting the sale of digital books. On the Internet, the group is selling the digital books at the site operated by the coalition of the group’s publishing companies named “Digital Bunko Pabli” and is also providing the digitized works to “M-Stage”, operated by NTT Docomo. To the cellular phones, the group company Kadokawa Digix Corporation, in cooperation with Bandai Networks Co., Ltd. is developing “Bunko Yomihodai”, which is attracting the readers. This service is provided at the price of ¥300 per month for limitless subscription of all titles. At present, 10,000 readers per month are accessing the site and the operating body is targeting to increase the number of members to 20,000 within this fiscal year. The line-up covers a series of masterworks in the categories of horror, mystery and romance stories and classic pieces, and the number of titles is increasing.
Under harsh conditions, which the publishing industry is facing for these years, Kadokawa Shoten has reduced the rate of returns and, aiming to further improve the profitability, has set a guideline for the number of new issues in order to implement the selection of plans and the reinforcement of marketing and sales of each publication. Though the profitability is important, we also recognize it as the mission of Kadokawa Shoten as the Mega Contents Provider to keep providing the readers with good quality contents. In addition, the other four publication companies are publishing specialized books in their respective fields of specialities.