metal beat Posted February 28, 2021 Share Posted February 28, 2021 Vinyl Record Sales Increased Almost 30% in 2020, RIAA Says The RIAA has released its annual year-end revenue report, surveying the state of the recorded music industry at the end of 2020. Despite the coronavirus pandemic, trends across the past several years carried on: Streaming is up 13.4%, generating $10.1 billion last year compared to $8.9 billion in 2019, accounting for 83% of the total revenue of the industry. Vinyl sales have continued to rise, too, increasing a whopping 29.2% to $619.6 million, compared to $479.5 million in 2019. The rise in vinyl sales made up for the continued decline in CD sales, leading to a marginal 0.5% decrease in revenue across all physical media from to 2019 to 2020. Music downloads continue to trend downwards, too, decreasing by 18% to $674.4 million last year as compared to $822.8 million in 2019. The RIAA report concludes that 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. Read the full report here. RIAA link https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2020-Year-End-Music-Industry-Revenue-Report.pdf Streaming 83% $10.1B Physical 9% (Vinyl 54.4% - CD 42.4% - Music video/other 3.2% split of $1.1B) Digital downloads 6% $0.674B Sync 2% Total industry USA rev = $12.2 Billion 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metal beat Posted February 28, 2021 Author Share Posted February 28, 2021 Quite interesting that cd is going out of business with a bang. Who would have thought. Physical 9% (Vinyl 54.4% - CD 42.4% 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
needlerunner Posted March 1, 2021 Share Posted March 1, 2021 Like vinyl, CDs will still around for a long time...hopefully! I've got around 2k of the little silver buggers. Still a great format. My biggest fear is that they stop making hi end cd players. I want to finish up with one, at some stage. As much as l love vinyl. It's still hit and miss what you end up with. Cds have improved dramatically this century in their sq. I'll keep buying them. K 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satanica Posted March 1, 2021 Share Posted March 1, 2021 15 hours ago, metal beat said: Quite interesting that cd is going out of business with a bang. Who would have thought. Physical 9% (Vinyl 54.4% - CD 42.4% I'm guessing there were still more CD's sold than Vinyl records so those numbers represent the revenue share and not total sale numbers. And of course as we know vinyl is magnitudes more expensive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metal beat Posted March 1, 2021 Author Share Posted March 1, 2021 (edited) 46 minutes ago, Satanica said: I'm guessing there were still more CD's sold than Vinyl records so those numbers represent the revenue share and not total sale numbers. And of course as we know vinyl is magnitudes more expensive. I would think so. cd's are now like cheap cassettes - they sell at minimum cost. the cd market would dive to almost zero if they were parity price with vinyl releases. Vinyl does have a higher manufacturing cost than cd, but not the entire price difference. If record companies keep vinyl prices high for too long, they will bite the hand that feeds them - again. Ironic that cd will be dead soon while vinyl for the time being is growing and a larger market than cd's for two years. Can't say I feel any sadness with the demise of cd's after the craap I used to get with sticking with vinyl from smug CD fanbois back in the day after I realised cd was not perfect sound forever - far from it.. It was always a flawed music medium and even truer today. One thing is, streaming will hit 95% pretty soon, Spotify hifi will speed that up and vinyl a niche market - but for how long ? Edited March 1, 2021 by metal beat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
needlerunner Posted March 1, 2021 Share Posted March 1, 2021 Lol. You are a very funny person MB. Stick to your perfect vinyl ideology....not. Yep, CDs are flawed (your words not mine). But vinyl. Yer, still arrive with warps. Yep, still crackle and pops. Yep, still crap production sq wise on some. Yep, you are so right, vinyl, the perfect medium. Oh, and dare l mention, way over priced. And for your information, the CDs l purchase aren't cheap. But still, l would rather pay $23 for a cd than for a record that costs $45, that doesn't sound any better. And before you pile on, l have a 4k tt. I have the best of both worlds. But l get a bit sick of vinyl snobbery. Unlike you, l believe there is a place for all formats. And again, dare l remind...it's more about the MUSIC! Hypocritical when you say cd fan bois. When you are the vinyl equivalent. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fodderstomf Posted March 12, 2021 Share Posted March 12, 2021 US music fans bought more CDs, downloads than vinyl in 2020 | Darko.Audio ‘“ US MUSIC FANS BOUGHT MORE CDs THAN VINYL in 2020’ would have been a more accurate headline; but considerably less catchy. “ Darko nails on the head what a percentage of us already knew about revenue vs units Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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