Manga delivered to cell phones accounted for around $345 million in sales in Japan in 2008, up 43% from 2007, according to an estimate by Impress R&D quoted in the The New York Times on Monday.  That’s in comparison to the Japanese market for book and magazine manga, which has been declining in recent years.  Digital content is now accounting for up to 10% of revenues for manga publishers. 

Among the most popular manga sold digitally are josei (romance comics for adult women, often with sexual content, incorrectly called shojo in the article), proving the maxim that the first adopters of any new technology are looking for sex. 

The limitation of screen size is hampering wider adoption in Japan, according to the report.  Adoption in the U.S. is limited by the mobile devices available and the network, but the iPhone is providing an initial platform here for a rapidly growing first market for digital comic content.