The Recording Industry Association of Japan has just released physical-music shipments data for the first nine months of 2009, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, the state of the world's No. 2 music market is as bleak as ever.

Shipments of audio product by the RIAJ’s 49 member companies in the January-September period totaled 156.8 million units, down 14% from the first nine months of 2008, for a wholesale value of 185.4 billion yen ($2 billion), down 15%, according to data released Oct. 20 by the RIAJ. 

The association’s members, who account for some 90% of recorded-music sales in Japan, shipped 34.2 million units of foreign product in the first three quarters of the year, down 18%, for a value of 41.6 billion yen ($458.3 million), a decline of 13%.

Domestic-repertoire shipments fell 13% to 122.5 million units, for a value of 143.8 billion yen ($1.6 billion), down 16%.

Shipments of music videos and DVDs, which in contrast to those for music have generally been healthy, were lackluster. They remained flat at 41.6 million units, for a value of 45.3 billion yen ($500 million), down 7% from January-September 2008.