# Pianos Are Not Selling in the United States and Japan, and Pearl River Lost Over 100 Million Yuan in Half a Year: What Should Families Buying Pianos and Learning Piano Change Now?

In February 2025, Yamaha made a striking statement in the Q&A for its earnings presentation: China's acoustic piano market had shrunk to roughly one-quarter of its former size over the preceding three years, and the company did not expect a long-term recovery. It had decided to close its Indonesian factory and consolidate acoustic piano production from four factories into two, in Japan and China. The original article also described digital piano sales and market share as recovering in the same Q&A. [Yamaha's February 5, 2025 Q&A](https://www.yamaha.com/en/ir/library/presentations/qa-202502/) confirms recovering market share and an expectation of digital piano sales growth in the following fiscal year.

This is not happening only in China. According to the figures cited in the original article, just over 17,000 acoustic pianos were sold in the United States in 2024, compared with 300,000 in 1925, nearly a century earlier; more than 180,000 digital pianos were sold in the United States in 2024. In Japan, acoustic piano sales still exceeded 40,000 in 2001, but had fallen to just over 13,000 by 2022. As early as 2001, digital piano sales were already three times acoustic piano sales.

*Translator's note: The original describes 1925 as “a hundred years” before 2024. The interval between the stated years is 99 years; both years and all sales figures have been retained.*

## The Numbers in China

The original article reports that piano sales in China fell from 356,000 in 2018 to 128,000 in 2023, then dropped below 100,000 in 2024. Pearl River Piano sold 37,700 pianos in 2024, almost half as many as in the previous year; its 2025 annual report put sales at 23,100. In the first half of 2026, Pearl River reported revenue of RMB 265 million and a loss of RMB 126 million. The loss was slightly smaller than in the same period of 2025, but it was still a loss. Hailun Piano sold just over 6,900 pianos during the whole of 2025, one-third fewer than in 2024, according to the article.

In the author's assessment, Japan and the United States have already followed this path: once household adoption peaked, acoustic piano sales never returned to their high point. What recovered instead were digital pianos, high-end pianos, and institutional purchases. China is likely to follow the same pattern. The industry is not going back to what it was.

![Illustration contrasting rows of pianos in a factory with a digital piano for home use](https://static.lianmuse.com/image/blog/685ca335494546b9b0784b603df90685.jpg)

## Three Things Families Learning Piano Should Change

First, rethink how you buy a piano. The other side of the industry's contraction, the author argues, is that pianos have become cheaper in China: new pianos are being discounted, buyback prices for used pianos are just over RMB 10,000, and digital pianos cost even less. Yamaha itself is shifting its emphasis toward digital pianos. When buying an instrument for a child who is just starting, you no longer need to treat it as a major purchase to be passed down through the generations. A digital piano that meets your needs or a used upright piano can be enough. What matters first is giving your child something they can play every day.

Second, do not confuse a downturn in the industry with a downturn in piano learning. These numbers count pianos sold, not children learning to play. In the same year that US acoustic piano sales fell to around 17,000, digital piano sales reached around 180,000. The author's interpretation is that most piano-buying families have changed the type of instrument they buy, rather than stopped buying altogether. Whether your child learns piano has nothing to do with whether Pearl River makes a loss.

![A parent and child trying an ordinary digital piano for home use together in a piano shop](https://static.lianmuse.com/image/blog/b4ab5fad1e076eca7a99205b2cb27c95.jpg)

Third, practice at home is worth more than the piano itself. As the author describes it, piano prices are falling, but the cost of a lesson has not fallen, and parents are still spending their evenings helping their children practice. Give two families the same piano: one practices for twenty minutes every night, while the other opens the piano lid once a week. Three years later, the difference will not be the instrument. The industry cannot return to its old days, but your family can return to those twenty minutes at home.

Over the past two years, each new piece of news about the piano industry has seemed bleaker than the last. Yet, for a family with a child learning piano, the author's message is the same every time: pianos will keep getting cheaper; piano practice will not.

When did you buy your family's piano? Do you still open it every day?

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Wonder Piano provides AI-assisted practice support for piano practice at home. Here, we write about practice methods and the difficulties families encounter when putting those methods into everyday use.

[Original Chinese article on WeChat](http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=Mzk2NDI0NTYzOQ==&mid=2247488486&idx=1&sn=dab6f98ce641306df0e610a6058b099f&chksm=c477320ef300bb184ca5f340845807d6dfd549d6dd8676d02a57c89d24040d5fd34348a7c7ad#rd)