Avex Inc.

Avex was registered June 1, 1973, as Avex D.D. Incorporated (エイベックス・ディー・ディー株式会社, Eibekkusu Di Di Kabushiki Gaisha), although it did not become established until 1988. They began as a CD wholesaler based in Machida, Tokyo.[8] In September 1990, they opened a recording studio and created Avex Trax as a music label. In the same year, they created "Musique Folio Inc.", a music publishing company, which became "Prime Direction Inc."

In 1993, they transferred to Aoyama, Tokyo and created a U.S. branch, called "AV Experience America Inc." The year also marked the first of Avex's yearly events. It was held in Tokyo Dome under the name "avex rave '93" and attracted 50,000 attendees. This led to the creation of the Cutting Edge label.

In 1994, they formed two UK subsidiaries, "Rhythm Republic Limited" and "Avex U.K. Limited". Later that year, they opened a disco, claimed on their website to be "the world's largest scale disco", named Velfarre.[9]

In 1997, they opened a series of concert halls called "Zepp" with Sony Music Entertainment Japan. In early 1999, they signed an agreement with Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records to handle the companies' Japanese CD releases. Later that year "Avex Mode", an animation company, was established. In December, the company was listed on the 1st section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol 7860.[10]

In 2001, Avex opened the "avex artists academy" music school.[11]

In 2002, they released the "CCCD", a type of copy-protected CD,[12] and opened their building in Aoyama, paid for by Sumitomo Life and worth 205 billion yen.

In 2003, they opened a classical music business (named Avex Classics).[13]

In January 2004, they began selling Japanese music CDs in South Korea. In December of that same year, President Max Matsuura "spotted" former idol Ami Suzuki performing live at the annual festival of their school, Nihon University. He subsequently signed her to the Avex label.[14]

In 2005, Avex acquired distribution rights for Aozora Records' catalogue including all future Hitomi Yaida releases.[15]

In early 2008, Avex partnered with Victor JVC to officially create the label D-topia Entertainment as a business partnership between the labels and its founder, Terukado Onishi, with the sales promotion handled by Victor while the area promotion handled by Avex. As part of the Avex Group's 20th anniversary celebration, a big project occurred with avex trax's "produced by avex trax" artists; the band Girl Next Door, formed and debuted in September 2008.

Avex Group launched its own IPTV service, BeeTV, May 2009 in partnership with NTT DoCoMo.

In August 2004, a feud between Max Matsuura and co-founder Tom Yoda affected the group.[16] It started because of Yoda's ambition to expand Avex into other entertainment-related ventures, especially producing movies.[17] In addition, he accused Ryuhei Chiba, the company's executive director and president of Avex Inc. (now Avex Planning and Development), of pursuing personal profit from a few big artists.[16]

July 30: In a board meeting, Yoda introduced a resolution calling on Chiba to resign because of an alleged conflict of interest. A source says the disagreement arose because Chiba had signed an artist managed by a member of his family. The board backed Yoda's resolution in a 6-1 vote. However, Matsuura — described by insiders as a close ally of Chiba — introduced a second resolution demanding that Yoda step down due to "a difference of opinion in management principles". Matsuura's motion was defeated 5-2. He and Chiba resigned the next day.[18]

August 2: Matsuura and Chiba announced their resignations in a meeting with employees of Avex.[19][20] Chiba denied any fault, while Matsuura complained that Avex had lost its love of music and said he wanted to start over. They had the support of many staff who also said they would quit. More significantly, the label's top star, Ayumi Hamasaki, said she would leave.[20] As a result, Avex's stocks in the TSE fell by 16 percent that day.[21]

August 3: Due to pressure by employees and artists and to save the company from bankruptcy, Yoda resigned and was replaced by Toshio Kobayashi.[8][22]

AGHD is listed at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Börse München of Germany under the ticker symbol AX8.[23]

More K-pop artists from other agencies continued to sign with Avex such as SM Entertainment's TVXQ (2006), YG Entertainment's 2NE1 (2010), S-plus Entertainment's SS501 member Kim Hyung Jun (2011), Pledis Entertainment's After School (2011), NH Media's U-KISS (2011)[24] and Yejeon Media's Shu-I (2011).[25]

On July 21, 2011, it was announced that Avex had paired with Korean management label YG Entertainment to form YGEX.[26]

In 2012, the group began offering limited releases for sale, DRM-free for the first time within Japan on Amazon MP3.[27] Max Matsuura and Toshio Kobayashi, the company's top two individual shareholders, launched their own investment companies to anchor their shares in 2012.

As a show of modernization, Avex Group moved to Izumi Garden Tower in Roppongi in October 2014. The company was designated to the 36th floor – the former address of DWANGO.

On February 15, 2017, Avex Group discontinued all foreign exports of Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs published under their Avex Pictures label.[28] A spokesperson said the action was taken due to unspecified rights issues.[29]

In 2022, Avex made a renewed attempt to expand into North America. Avex USA Inc. opened in a rented five-bedroom West Hollywood home, headed by Naoki Osada, an Avex veteran with experience in the American music business. Avex leadership gave Osada five years to find success in the U.S.[30] The home has been renovated to include four recording studios.[31] The label has partnered with Sony Music Publishing to administer its catalogue outside Japan.[32]

In April 2010, the Avex Group corporation was re-structured to establish Avex Music Publishing Inc. as a consolidated subsidiary, in a corporate spin-off of music publishing division of Avex Group Holdings Inc. Thus the Avex Group became a pure holding company, with a corporate structure as follows:[33]

• Avex Entertainment Inc. (エイベックス・エンタテインメント株式会社, eibekkusu entateinmento kabushiki gaisha)
• Avex Broadcasting & Communications Inc. (エイベックス通信放送株式会社, eibekkusu tsūshin hōsō kabushiki gaisha)
• Avex Management Inc. (エイベックス･マネジメント株式会社, eibekkusu manejimento kabushiki gaisha)[34]
• Avex Music Publishing Inc. (エイベックス・ミュージック・パブリッシング株式会社, eibekkusu myūjikku paburisshingu kabushiki gaisha) (Formerly Musique Folio Inc. and Prime Direction Inc.)

• Avex International Holding Corporation
• Avex Asia Pte. Ltd.
• Avex Taiwan Inc. – Est. July 1998[33][35]
• Avex USA Inc.

• Memory-Tech Corporation
• RecoChoku Co., Ltd.[36]
• AWA

• Movies
  • Domestic
    • Avex Pictures
      • DIVE II Entertainment
  • Foreign
    • Elephant Pictures[52]
    • PiX Inc.[53]
• Artist Management
  • Avex Management
  • Platinum Productions
• Digital
  • Avex Broadcasting and Communications (joint venture with NTT docomo)
  • mu-mo.net[54] (Japanese) (own music store of the Group)
• Theater Company
  • $4.50 Theater Company

• Official website (in Japanese and English)
• Avex Network (in Japanese)

Media related to Avex Group at Wikimedia Commons

• Website in Taiwan (in Chinese)
• Website in China (in Chinese)
• Website in Hong Kong (in Chinese)
• Avex Group Asia Portal (in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean)

• Avex Network's channel on YouTube
• Avex Inc. at Anime News Network's encyclopedia