In news that should surprise neither record store clerks nor anyone who’s actually been in a record store lately, vinyl sales are still on the rise. The RIAA just released its mid-year stats for 2015, which found that vinyl sales are up 52.1 percent compared to this time last year, accounting for about $226 million in total sales. That’s still only about half as much revenue as CDs bring in—$494.4 million this year to date—but that number, like CDs themselves, is also rapidly falling.
It’s worth noting that while the RIAA says that vinyl accounts for about 30 percent of all physical music sales, that portion of the market is also getting smaller every year. Sales of hard music products—LPs, CDs, cassettes, and so on—are down 17 percent compared to last year at this time, while digital revenues are up about six percent. It’s also worth noting that these figures only account for albums featured in the Soundscan system, meaning only new LPs would be included in these stats. How much used vinyl is moving in record stores is really anyone’s guess.
