Vinyl Sales Are Up 745% Since 2008
First, the good news: vinyl sales at Amazon are up 745 percent over a five year time period, according to the Verge. That vinyl sales are increasing shouldn’t shock anyone, but such a huge number is a pretty big deal (worth noting: the stat only refers to vinyl sales on Amazon, just one retailer, although I’m sure you’d see increases elsewhere too). More good news: overall music sales surpassed 1.65 billion units in 2012, the highest mark ever. Digital Album sales are up 14.1% and Digital Track sales are up 5.1%; for metal albums, digital sales have experienced a 16.4% increase.
Now the bad news, and there’s plenty of it. According to a report from Nielsen tracking U.S. music sales figures for the 12-month period of January 2, 2012 through December 30, 2012:
- Vinyl still only accounts for 2% of the overall market
- Physical music sales on the whole are down 12.8%
- CD sales are down 13.5%, meaning the increase in vinyl percentage is as much a function of decreased CD sales as renewed interest in vinyl
- Total album sales (all formats, including digital) are down 4.4%
What are the takeaways here? 1) There is more interest in buying music than ever before, but the majority of that increased interest is going into lower-margin single track or digital album downloads. 2) Vinyl’s resurgence is not going to save the music sales industry. 3) The CD is continuing its death march into obscurity.
I think it’d be interesting to see how streaming services such as YouTube, Spotify, Pandora and Rdio factor into this mix.
[via Metal Injection]
