Japan is home to the highest density of vending machines in the world, with about 5.6m machines, or one for every 23 people. You can buy almost anything, and the Japanese do, with about JPY6.67trn (US$56bn) being spent on them every year.

Yet, apart from the obvious players such as major soft drinks companies, there have been no foreign owners of this massive direct sales medium until now.

Market Pioneer Japan is proud to announce that as of October, 2006, it has built a network of over 1,000 vending machines placed nationwide, selling stickers and print logos. We invite owners of licensable characters to contact us with a view to distributing your IP assets into the Japanese market.