Are music CDs making a comeback like vinyl records? US media reports at least suggest that the long-lasting downward trend in music CDs could be interrupted in 2021. It remains to be seen how sustainable the development is.
Music CD versus vinyl versus streaming
As the The Verge website citing data from the US Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), CD sales in the US have been on the rise again for almost two decades. In 2020, 31.6 million units went over the counter or the parcel service, by 2021 it was already 46.6 million. That is a remarkable increase of 47 percent. Sales went up from $483.2 million to $584.2 million, an increase of 20 percent. Apparently, the average price per piece has fallen significantly over the period.
In order to classify the figures, one should of course have a comparison with the last few years. In the year 2000 almost a billion music CDs were delivered, of course we are miles away from that. In 2010 it was still around 250 million, i.e. still five times as much as in 2021. Nevertheless, the numbers are surprising, because the second physical format, the vinyl record, has also been increasing slowly but steadily for many years. In 2021, vinyl was at 39.7 million units and sales of just over one billion US dollars.
According to The Verge, it would be the first time since 1996 (!) that physical music media has seen an increase in sales. However, there is hardly a herb against music streaming: paid subscriptions in the USA account for 57.2 percent of the measured income and correspond to 8.6 billion in the total market. After all, advertising-financed music streams still generate USD 1.8 billion. If you take music CDs and records together, that’s 11 percent of total sales.
It remains questionable whether, in the case of the music CD, it will remain a one-off effect that can perhaps be explained by corona effects. When people are more at home, whether for work or leisure, one or the other CD or DVD player may be running more. Even if the CD is no better in quality than high-quality audio streams, it still offers a tactile advantage, similar to vinyl records. And maybe one or the other user would rather own his music than just acquire temporary usage rights. If you are on the go, you should still rely on music streaming.
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