The number of operating vending machines in Japan fell about 20 percent from 2013 to 2025, dropping to about 1.95 million units. The largest operator of the machines — which are seemingly everywhere in the country, and contain a much wider arrangement of products than vending machines in other countries — is Coca-Cola, followed by Suntory Beverage, which has 340,000 vending machines. Because products sold in vending machines tend to be a little more expensive than what you’d buy at a more typical retailer, inflation can be a real strain on the business, and annual sales volume per machine is down to 207 cases, off 60 percent from the peak in 1996. Suntory is eyeing new ways to use all that hardware in the field, and has settled on targeting anime and pop fans with on-demand printing of trading cards and similar blind-box products.
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