This is the first time that any of the franchise owners of Tsutaya stores are ending their video rental business.
Sales of the video rental business in Top Culture’s Tsutaya stores have decreased to about 20% of what they were over 10 years ago at their peak in October 2011.
— which operates 74 Tsutaya retail chain stores in Tokyo and nine other prefectures — announced in July a medium-term management plan to end video rental business at its stores by the end of the fiscal year ending in October 2023.
The rental market, however, amounted to 104.1 billion yen (about US$938 million), a 17.3% decrease.