Hokuto Corporation

DMM.com, formally Hokuto Corporation (株式会社北都, Kabushiki Kaisha Hokuto) is a Japanese joint stock company involved in the distribution of adult videos (AV) and adult toys. The firm, founded in March 1990, is headquartered in Tokyo at the Ebisu Garden Place Tower.^[1] By late 2008, DMM was handling products from more than 150 different adult video studios, making it one of the largest AV distributors in Japan. The company interfaces with the public for sales and information as Outvision.^[2]

Company information

As of July 2007 DMM had 185 employees and total assets of 16,618,000,000 yen (about $166 million). Stockholders equity was 6,073,000,000 yen (about $60 million) and company capital amounted to 45 million yen (about $450,000). Sales for the fiscal year ending February 2007 were 28,366,000,000 yen (about $283 million) with sales for the 2008 fiscal year extrapolating to about 30 billion yen (about $300 million).^[1] Hokuto had a period of rapid growth from the time of its foundation with sales going from 5.1 billion yen (about $50 million) in fiscal year 2001 to 6.2 billion yen ($60 million) in 2002, 9.8 billion yen ($100 million) in 2003 and 12.3 billion yen ($125 million) in 2004.^[3] Under CEO Hiroyuki Shimazaki (島崎啓之),^[1] DMM caught up with and surpassed its chief rival in AV sales, the Soft On Demand (SOD) group. Some companies which had formerly been part of SOD, including Dogma, Hajime-Kikaku and Aroma Planning, left SOD to become clients of DMM.

According to the Japanese market research company Teikoku Databank, after this period of rapid growth, there was a sharp drop in sales at DMM, probably due to competition from internet porn sites. From a high of 32.4 billion yen (about $330 million) for fiscal year 2008, income dropped to less than half that amount for the 2010 fiscal year and rival SOD once again became the largest adult conglomerate in Japan.^[4]

DMM

The DMM Corporation (株式会社デジタルメディアマート or "Digital Media Mart"),^[5] incorporated November 1999,^[6] which is a major distributor of videos in Japan for both sales and rental and also provides pay-per-view and downloadable digital adult content via its website dmm.co.jp.^[7] The director of DMM is Tatsuya Matsue (松栄立也) and the company has a capital of 30 million yen (about $300,000).^[8] The DMM website was opened in July 1998^[9] and in September 2011 was ranked #30 in traffic for Japanese sites, #177 in Hong Kong, and #422 globally, with an audience slanted towards middle-aged men.^[5]

As of September 2011, DMM had a catalog of more than 160,000 DVDs for sale,^[10] more than 200,000 adult videos available for rental^[11] and more than 130,000 videos for digital download.^[12] It also lists information on more than 30,000 AV actresses and compiles an annual list of the top 100 ranked actresses in sales from its site.^[13] In addition, the DMM site provides facilities for a large number of AV actress blogs.^[14] DMM also provided an English-language version, en.dmm.co.jp, for pay-per-view or monthly subscription downloads only,^[15] but it was discontinued on 29 April 2013.

Nutaku partnership

In December 2014, DMM partnered with Nutaku with the objective of marketing and publishing games to the western market.^[16] Nutaku is currently the sole distributor of DMM games outside Japan:

Several DMM games have been translated in English and released on Nutaku:^[17]

• Dragon Tactics memories
• Girls Kingdom
• Ultra adventure! Go Go-Osawari Island
• Hellfire girls
• Peropero seduction
• Angelic Saga
• Millennium War Aigis
• Lord of Valkyrie
• Luv Slot
• Kanpani Girls
• Dragon Providence
• Hijitsu Chronicle
• Duel Squad

For additional information see Nutaku#Game release timeline.

R18.com

In May 2013, DMM.com released its English-language adult website R18.com, which has grown to become the largest English library of Japanese adult videos on the Internet. With over 200,000 movies available for VOD via streaming and downloading, it far surpasses other rival JAV sites.

AV Grand Prix

Upon the demise of the SOD-sponsored AV Open contest in 2007 owing to fraud, DMM started a new competition in 2008, the AV Grand Prix.^[18] Winners were determined by sales and by fan voting at the DMM website. The 2008 AV Grand Prix was a success with 77 studios competing and an even larger 2009 contest began in late 2008.^[19][20]

Companies in the DMM group

As of mid-2010, the DMM group included 20 studios producing gravure (non-nude) videos and another 19 units involved in adult toys.^[21] More than 150 companies were in the business of producing adult videos in various formats and genres. Below is a list of some of the main companies involved in AV production.^[21]

Notes

Sources

• "Outvision" (in Japanese). Outvision Website.  External link in |publisher= (help)
• "DMM Adult" (in Japanese). DMM Website.  External link in |publisher= (help)