Vinyl sales exceed CD sales for the first time in 30 years

The Recording Industry Association of America reported $232million sales of vinyl music between January & June 2020 compared with just $144million CD sales.

The RIAA has published its mid-year 2020 report on the state of the music industry in the US and among the interesting revelations in the report is the fact that vinyl album sales generated more revenues than CD sales during the six-month period for the first time since the 1980s.

RIAA cited shutdown measures at retailers and live venues as the primary reason for the sharp decline in physical product sales, howver, vinyl sales still only accounted for four percent of total music industry revenues for the period.

Vinyl, CD & Streamings metrics

Without any doubts, streaming music continues to be the driving force of the industry with a whopping 85 percent of total music industry revenues in the first half, or $4.8 billion. This is a progression up from $4.3 billion in the first half of 2019 and $3.4 billion during the first six months of 2018.

Last but not least, the streaming plateform total number of paid music subscriptions in the US, meanwhile, climbed to 72.1 million from just 58.2 million during the same period a year ago.