While digital music now eclipses CD sales in the United States, Japanese music lovers tend to be big on showing off their disc collections -- e-books have also struggled -- and the industry is heavily geared toward sales of physical media.
This week, mobile messaging giant Line said it was going where others including Sony and games giant DeNA had failed, with a streaming service that offers unlimited access to a collection of more than 1.5 million songs for 1,000 yen (USS 8) a month.
Line Music said it would run a two-month free campaign before rolling out the fee-based business, which will also offer budget-conscious consumers 20 hours of listening time for 500 yen. It said it plans to boost its collection to 30 million songs by next year.
Last month, information technology firm CyberAgent and music giant Avex Group rolled out their AWA streaming service.
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"Young people are spending their time and money on mobile phones and games so their spending on music has declined," said Yuko Tanno from the Recording Industry Association of Japan.
"We're hoping that (streaming) is a growth market."
Japan is the world's number two music market, estimated to be worth USD 2.6 billion in 2014, trailing only the USD 4.8 billion US market.