REVIEWS NEWS SPEAKERS HEADPHONES HI-FI TV SMARTPHONES GADGETS HOME THEATRE PHOTO COMPUTERS SMART HOME
News

LP sales surpass CD

Vinyl sales account for 71 per cent of physical music media revenue. Downloads are extinct.

forfatter
Published 2023-03-17 - 8:51 am

Rumours of the death of the LP were exaggerated. Not only are the black vinyl discs still alive. Sales of analogue records, which have been growing steadily for a number of years, have now overtaken CD sales. And by a solid margin, BBC writes.

A new report from the RIAA, the US record industry organisation, says that in 2022, 41 million vinyl records were sold in the US market, worth USD 1.2 billion, while CD sales were only 33 million copies, totalling USD 483 million.

This is the 16th consecutive year of growth in vinyl record sales, but the first time in decades that LPs have outsold CDs. Vinyl record sales now account for 71 per cent of physical music sales. This is not just about the success of LPs, but about the decline of CDs. CD sales fell by a whopping 28.4 per cent compared to 2021, which was not a great year for the CD medium either.

Streaming totally dominates

While this is good news for vinyl enthusiasts and analogue lovers, it hardly makes the CEOs of Spotify and Tidal fear for their future. After all, streaming revenue is still more than ten times the size of vinyl revenue.

In fact, streaming revenue grew by seven per cent to 13.3 billion. And since the cost of each song played on a streaming service is dramatically lower than on vinyl and CD, the vinyl medium still represents a negligible share of music listening overall.

Also check out The best of both worlds

CD streamers are the perfect way to combine your CD collection with streaming.

Downloading has been wiped out

If there is one form of music listening that is clearly losing out, it’s digital downloads. Only three per cent of revenue in 2022 went to downloaded music. This was a drop of 20 per cent compared to the previous year. In 2012, before the advent of streaming services, digital downloads accounted for a whopping 43% of total music sales.

Let’s have a minute’s silence for the download – while we put on a record.

Comments

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Metallica buy record plant

Vinyl renaissance: Metallica have invested in their own record factory to make sure their fans will never be short of LPs.

Vinyl is bigger than CDs

Vinyl sales account for 71 per cent of physical music media revenue. Downloads are extinct.

Roland's jubilee grand has flying speakers

Roland Corporation celebrates its 50th anniversary by creating a wild concept piano with built-in 14-channel sound - and four flying speakers!

Iconic studio microphone is back

Neumann's iconic M 49 valve microphone is back. But it's far from cheap.

The '90s have called: Winamp is back

In the Internet's infancy and the writer's youth, Winamp ran the music at the party. Now the player is back after almost a decade's absence.

Tidal is upgrading all customers to HiFi today

Premium customers now get CD quality, while existing HiFi customers get access to surround formats, HD quality - and a good conscience.

Follow LB Tech Reviews