Physical-music shipments in Japan – the world’s No. 2 music market -- plummeted in the first half of 2009, with foreign product faring especially poorly.

Shipments of audio product by the Recording Industry Association of Japan’s 48 member companies in the January-June period totaled 101.5 million units, down 17% from the first half of 2008, for a wholesale value of 118.9 billion yen ($1.3 billion), down 19%, according to data released July 21 by the RIAJ. 

The association’s members, who account for roughly 90% of recorded-music sales in Japan, shipped 20.6 million units of foreign product in the first half, down 27%, for a value of 24.6 billion yen ($261.9 million), a decline of 23%.

Domestic-repertoire shipments fell 14% to 80.9 million units, for a value of 94.3 billion yen ($1 billion), down 18%.

It remains to be seen, meanwhile, whether Japan’s digital sector can make up for the continuing decline in physical sales; the RIAJ’s most recent digital-sales data is for January-March 2009, when digital sales were flat compared with the first quarter of 2008.