American consumers bought 41.3 million vinyl records in 2022, compared to 33.4 million compact discs, which means that annual vinyl sales exceeded CD sales in the US last year for the first time since 1987, MBW reports. The difference in revenue is even bigger - income from vinyl jumped 17.2% year over year to $1.2 billion in 2022, while revenues from CDs fell 17.6%, to $483 million. Music sales data company Luminate also found that 50% of consumers who have bought vinyl in the past 12 months in the US own a record player, which of course means that 50% of vinyl buyers - don’t own a record player.

Taylor Swift sold 1.695 million vinyl albums in the U.S. in 2022 across her entire catalog of releases, more than any other act by far last year, Billboard reports. Nearly one of every 25 vinyl LPs sold last year in the U.S. was a Swift album - 43.46 million total vinyl albums were sold by all artists. Swift’s latest release, 'Midnights', was the top-selling vinyl album of 2022 in the U.S., with 945,000 copies sold across all of its vinyl variants and editions, benefiting from the availability of a range of alternative versions and color-vinyl variants. 'Midnights' was available in four standard vinyl LP editions, each with a different cover and colored vinyl, with back covers of the albums fitting together like a puzzle to display a clock face. A side fact - while vinyl album sales continue to gain each year in the U.S., only half of those fans buying records actually own a vinyl record player.

Despite all the hype, vinyl album unit sales only grew 4% in 2022, after a 95% growth in 2021. Those numbers are a HUGE disappointment - Ted Gioia argues. This is what the music industry did, according to his opinion, to cause it:

• They hate running factories—which is hard work. So they tried to outsource manufacturing instead of building it themselves. Chronic shortages resulted.
• They refuse to spend money on R&D, so they stayed with the same vinyl technology from the 1950s... In the year 2023, even bowling alleys, bordellos, and bookies are more tech savvy than the major record labels.
• They want easy money, so they kept prices extremely high. That was bizarre because their R&D and catalog acquisition costs were essentially zero, and they could have priced vinyl aggressively. Instead they treated vinyl as a luxury product.
• They love hype, so they focused on high visibility vinyl reissues, which look good in press releases, but couldn’t be bothered to make back catalog albums available. After a decade of the vinyl revival, they still hadn’t taken even basic steps in offering a wide product line.

Sales of CDs in the US increased from 40.16 million units in 2020 to 40.59 million in 2021, marking the first time CD sales have increased on a year-over-year basis since 2004. Vinyl album sales volume increased a massive 50.4% to 41.7 million. Billboard via Yahoo.

2.11 million vinyl records were sold in the week ending on December 23rd in the US, marking vinyl’s biggest week in sales since 1991, Billboard reports. It is also the first time vinyl sales have exceeded two million units in decades. Kid Cudi just broke the record for the biggest vinyl sales week for both a male artist and a rap album with 41,500 in sales of his album 'Man on the Moon III: The Chosen'. However, the best-selling vinyl album in the past week was Adele‘s '30', which moved 59,000 copies.

Vinyl sales in the UK topped five million for the first time since 1991, BBC reports adding that almost a quarter of the albums bought this year (23%) were on vinyl. Abba's 'Voyage' was the biggest-seller, followed by Adele's '30', Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours', Ed Sheeran's '=', and Amy Winehouse's 'Back to Black'. This year marks vinyl's 14th consecutive year of growth, with sales up by 8% on 2020. Sales of CDs continued to fall - just 14 million discs were bought, a 12% drop compared to the previous year - the lowest figure since 1988. Cassette sales increased for a ninth consecutive year - around 190,000 tapes were purchased in the past 12 months, up by around 20% year on year.

Music streaming increased 13.4% in 2020 in the US compared to 2019, generating $10.1 billion last year compared to $8.9 billion in 2019, according to RIAA. Music streaming is accounting for 83% of the total revenue of the industry now. Vinyl sales have increased a whopping 29.2% to $619.6 million, compared to $479.5 million in 2019. Streaming has driven the industry to grow for the fifth consecutive year, with revenues increasing 9.2% in 2020, generating $12.2 billion in total.

There were 1.842 million LP’s sold in the US during the week leading up to Christmas, ending on December 24th, which made it the biggest week the format has had since 1991, Billboard reports. The previous record was achieved just a week prior, when 1.445 million vinyl records were sold between December 10th and December 17th. The top-selling vinyl album last week was Paul McCartney’s new solo effort 'III', which sold a 32,000 units, making it the third-largest sales week for a vinyl record since 1991.

A record number of 1.253 million vinyl albums were sold in the week of Nov. 27-Dec. 3 in the U.S., enough for the largest sales week since 1991, when electronic tracking music sales began, Billboard reports. It’s only the second week in 39 years that weekly vinyl album sales surpassed 1 million - the last time it happened was a year ago when 1.243 million were sold in the week ending Dec. 26, 2019. Half of the sales is attributed to Record Store Day Black Friday festivities at independent record stores, as indie physical store sales accounted for 542,000 vinyl LPs sold in the week. The top-selling vinyl was Harry Styles’ 'Fine Line', with 15,000 copies sold.

Vinyl album sales in the US had their best week of the year last week with 55.5% increase to 943,000 copies sold, Billboard reports. That also marks the third-largest week for vinyl since 1991. The last time overall U.S. vinyl album sales were higher was in the week ending Dec. 26, 2019, when volume hit 1.24 million sold -- the largest week for vinyl album sales. Last week the record was set largely thanks to sale pricing and promotion at Walmart - the mega-store discounted all vinyl albums in-store to $15.

UK sales of vinyl have gone up almost 10% this year, which puts it on track to break the £100 million mark by the end of 2020, making for the best year since 1990, the Guardian reports. Sales by volume are also set to beat last year’s 4.3 million figure. Cassette sales are also up 85% so far this year, putting total sales on course to hit £1 million for the first time since the format received renewed interest.

Americans purchased $232 million USD worth of vinyl records in the first half of this year, out of a total of $376 million in physical music sales, Pitchfork reports. This marks the first time since the 1980s that CDs were outsold. Streaming revenue brought in $421 million USD in the first six months of 2020.

Online retail giant will temporarily cease stocking discretionary items, including vinyl records, to make room on its shelves for more essential items like household staples and medical supplies, Variety reports. Amazon will continue to sell whatever vinyl records are already in stock at their warehouses, once those are sold vinyl-buyers are gonna have to wait. Vinyl sales were up by 19% in 2019, accounting for a total of in $504 million in sales, the highest such number since 1988. Amazon is the largest seller of vinyl in the U.S. with a quarter of the overall market share.

The best selling vinyl album in the 2010s in the USA was 'Abbey Road' by the Beatles, selling in 558,000 copies. In fact, all the biggest vinyl albums of the past 10 years are older performers like Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Miles Davis... Only two albums actually released in the 2010s appear on the list: the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' soundtrack - which is entirely comprised of songs released in the ’60s and ’70s, and Lana Del Rey’s 'Born to Die'. The only album from the noughties on the list is Amy Winehouse's 'Back to Black'. No album from the 1990s on the list.

154 million albums were either streamed, bought or downloaded the UK last year, the largest amount since 2006, when the figure stood at 161.4 million. The majority of sales (three quarters) were made through streaming - fans streamed 114 billion songs last year, a new record (1,000 streams generate one "sale"). Just three years ago, […]

A record number of 973,000 vinyl LPs was sold in the USA in week ending Dec. 19, marking the single biggest week for vinyl album sales since Nielsen Music began electronically tracking music sales in 1991. Vinyl album sales were so hot in the week ending Dec. 19, they comprised 25% of all albums sold […]

A new branch of HMV opened in Birmingham today (October 11), the biggest entertainment store in Europe - it's almost the size of 12 tennis courts. HMV almost went bankrupt, when Sunrise Records owner Doug Putman bought the company, keeping over 100 stores open, though 27 ended up closing. The new Birmingham store, to be […]

For the first time since 1986, vinyl records are on pace to outsell CDs this year - in the first half of 2019 vinyl sales made $224.1 million, comparatively, CDs yielded $247.9 million. Vinyl revenue grew 12.8% in the second half of 2018, and 12.9% in the first six months of 2019. The profits and […]

827,000 vinyl albums were sold in the U.S. in the week of Record Store Day, a record for the Record Store Day week and the third-largest sales week for vinyl albums since Nielsen Music started tracking sales in 1991. The only two larger weeks for vinyl album sales overall were logged during the Christmas season […]