CD sales are growing faster than vinyl – and the reasons why will surprise you

CD sales have increased by 16 per cent in the US during the first half of 2026, outpacing vinyl, which grew by just 2.4 per cent in the same period.

Figures released as part of a biannual report by the data company Luminate showed that CDs sold 16.3 million units in the country between January and the end of June. Notably, however, vinyl remains the more popular physical medium in terms of overall sales, with 21.8 million units sold.

Luminate attributes part of the surge in CD sales to the release of ARIRANG, an album by K-pop group BTS, which sold 516,000 physical copies in its first week. 208,000 of the album’s physical sales were on vinyl.

According to Luminate, the album’s first week vinyl sales are the largest by a contemporary group since the data company started tracking sales electronically in 1991.

But remove BTS and the wider K-pop catalogue from the picture and CD sales still outpaced vinyl, with a growth of 6.7 per cent. So, what else could have provoked the surge?

Not long ago, we wrote about the effect that Gen Z are having on the physical sales market. Luminate’s report sheds further light on the matter, revealing that young people’s motivations aren’t limited to listening, with approximately half of Gen Z and millennials who bought a CD not owning a CD player.

According to Luminate: “This behavior underscores that for younger generations, the act of buying physical music is as much about aesthetic ownership and direct financial support for the artist as it is listening to the music on the product itself.”

Among Gen X, on the other hand, 55 per cent of buyers cited nostalgia as a direct influence on their CD purchases.

But sentimental value and affordable merchandise aren’t the only drivers here – listening habits are also changing. In the first half of 2026, 60 per cent of Gen Z listeners reported listening to music from the 1990s or earlier, in a jump of 42 per cent since 2021.

While physical sales continue to grow, it’s worth noting that they do so alongside streaming, rather than as a replacement. So far this year, US audio streams have grown by 11.8 per cent, while global on demand audio streams have risen by 9.8 percent.

So, streaming continues to dominate the landscape, but it seems that physical formats like CD are increasingly being chosen for their collectibility and improved financial connection to artists; motivations that any music lover should find hard to sniff at.

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