One of my friend recently told me that the overall sale of LPs surpassed CDs. Can it be true? I thought he was joking, but somehow he was serious. Well, MP3s and music download certainly has not helped to boost the CD sales, but I think the overall LP sale is still a fraction of CD sales.
Anyway, I've seen steady increase in used LP sales. I could get decent ones at $1~3 about 6~7 years ago, but now it is more like $3~6.
ALL TIME SALES??? Then obviously from early in the 20th century it is possible more lp's have been produced considering it has like a 100 or 75 year history opposed to about 20 mainstream years of CD.. However if its just for The year of 2006 or 07' I would really doubt the 300 or more cd's sold a day at each best buy would be even less than that of LP.
I would love to see a chart of sales per yer in $ volume of LPs, CDs, and MP3s over the last 20 years. Obviously at the onset of CDs, LPs were selling more, but very rapidly CDs took over sales by a huge (someone reported 1000:1 and I don't doubt that) margin. Now I'm wondering if the same trend will occur with mp3 (and other download formats) over the CD. It would not surprise me a bit. Surely this data exists somewhere.
one more thing...the number of lp 'releases' were up for a few years, but sales on a per title basis are now way down....on average , a vinyl run (gernerally the first is also the last is around 1200 units. the vinyl reissue business is the lion's share of that, and prepping a vinyl release is now at the point (with exception)where the economics are a struggle. note the slowdown by mosaic, sundazed, classic, etc. and others like simply vinyl have disappeared. its a jungle out there.......the flurry of new turntables will now slow down as well.
approximates....80 to 85% cd (dvda,sacd and hybrid is 1 to 2% of that)....digital delivery...15 to 20%.....vinyl lp's are around .01%.....note that the 'used' software business is not refleted here, nor illegal downloading.....all % except downloading have declined for the last 3 years running.
No way are LPs outselling cds, wavs, mp's, etc. The ratio used to be 1:1000 or thereabouts.
I had some stats fm a few yrs ago and actually posted them on A'gon -- but can't find them now.
Generally, LPs are outselling other small production items such as dvd-a & sacd as Albert notes.
Much of the sales volume comes from the pro sector (DJs) and 45rpm is making a "come back" of sorts srevicing that market.
Value and volume-wise, there seemed to be no stats regarding the used LP business -- apparently, it's quite large in volume but not in value I'd expect.
Overall, the GOOD news is that the business values are sufficient to warrant continued interest from vinyl producers -- so please, all, do buy the odd LP every now & then:)!
Yes, I feel somehow stupid to ask such question here. I knew he was dead long, but he was so convincing, so I was wondering. Yeh, he must be smoking something. More probably he read somewhere about the increase rate of the recent LP sales and misinterpreted it. (His English is a lot worse than mine ;-)
The percentage of increase in LP sales outstrips that of CD's. A couple of years ago, LP sales were up 100%. CD sales were down. That said, the amount of actual sales of LP's compared to CD's is miniscule.
Vinyl is out selling CD's. But it's mainly in Europe. The youth in Europe are buying lots of 45's. What a hoot ay. Young people want quality instead of ease of use in Europe. I do prefer 45's also but you have to get up alot more when you are listening. I also heard it is the preferred media in Japan but that could be false. It was told to me by a record store owner, he said a company from Japan was buying used vinyl from him in volume.
Something was missing in the communication or your friend is mistaken. Think about it; you can purchase cds at nearly any large large retailer. Where can you purchase lps? You don't need to do much research to figure which sell more but I hope someone here brings the stats.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
