What is the actual percentage of people exclusively listening to vinyl vs digital?

There are verifiable statistics to guide us. In Jan. 2021 vinyl album sales were 27% of all record sales. It's only gone up since.

We're all audiophiles on this forum so we don't care about the invented "Album-equivalent unit" term marketers use to determine the listening habits of those who listen to music on their phones or computer speakers but audiophiles have always been a very small % of the overall market.  Of them however & that group adjacent, buying records in physical forms, vinyl's growth is literally exponential & is on track to eclipse CDs (in the next couple or few years somewhere).  Downloads & streaming complicate things of course but there is a fundamental attraction to the physicality of records & ever larger numbers that once they've heard analog done right cannot easily suppress & deny the reality of the depth of the experience being greater.

I have one friend who listens exclusively to LPs (he has over 10,000 in a $850,000 audio system).   Another who also has that many LPs only listens to CDs for the last 10 years (ease of use for him).   Another who has about 4,000 CDs only burns them to big thumbdrives and listens exclusively to his own CDs.  Most of my friends have extensive collections of both LPs and CDs.  None stream.  We are all over 50 years old.   I also listen to 78s (7,000) occasionally to go with my 7,000 CDs and now 28,500 LPs (added 5,000 in past 3 years from 3 collections-deceased estates).

Several years ago I knew two audiophiles that both played vinyl, and they also had the same speakers and amplifiers. We'll call them #1 and #2, and #1 sold his entire record collection to go 100% digital. Several months later #1 was over # 2's house listening to vinyl, when he realized he could not get the same quality of sound with his digital system.. Needless to say being a true audiophile #1 bought another turntable, and started collecting high quality records again.

For many years now #1 has purchased the highest quality reissued records from Analogue Productions, The Illusive Disc, Music Direct, and high quality used records when reissued ones are not available. In the last fifteen years #1 has purchased about 200 records every year for an expense of about $100 dollars every week, or about $5K a year.

You spend that kind of money on records so you don't have to listen to clicks and pops. On the other hand if you don't know how to take care of a high quality record collection, or do not want to put the effort in, vinyl is not for you.

Back in the 80's there were thousands of audiophiles searching thrift shops and garage sales for Mercury Living Presence albums, RCA Shaded Dog albums, Decca, London, Lyrita, and other sought after manufactured albums , that were recommended in The Absolute Sound. It was a lesson in futility because when you did find a few of these recommended albums they usually were full of ticks and pops. Many times these records would appear to be perfect, but were noisy because they were played on a turntable that was set up improperly, without the proper tools.

In the early 90's RCA and Mercury started issuing albums of most of the sought after music that was recommended by The Absolute Sound, but this time digitally on CD's. Big corporations were out to kill vinyl in the mid to late 80's by offering to buy back CD albums from record stores if they did not sell. Up unto this point record stores had to eat vinyl if it did not sell, so they had blow out sales on their left over vinyl, and that was the end of new vinyl for about five or ten years.

So in the early 90's most audiophiles gave up on vinyl and started buying highly sought after music digitally on these newly available CD's. After all why wear out your car running all over hell and back looking for records that were not there. Some extremely stubborn audiophiles did just that, and sometimes found a few good records, but they mostly wore out their cars for no reward or very little. Mind you these guys were looking for records that cost anywhere from 25 cents to a few dollars.  

These guys would never pay the cost of these high quality newly reissued extremely quiet vinyl records, but did not think anything about the cars that they ran into the ground looking for a bargain.   OK, so I was one of the fools that searched for used records before these high quality reissued records became available. Now for the last twenty some years I've accumulated a fabulous record collection just by getting on my computer and spending.

Well since I'm in both listening camps (records and CDs), I've accumulated another 8,500 LPs in the past 3 years by buying two estate collections and being gifted another (all from deceased collectors).   I rarely seek records in stores any longer as I have 28,500 LPs/7,000 CDs/7,000 78s.  As to CDs, I occasionally go to thrift stores and often buy on line, mostly jazz and pop with many bargain cost classical music boxed sets.  Life is too short to go after one or two records in stores.  When I shop, I go to a store with good turnover and inventory and luckily live in Los Angeles.   NYC's record stores were mostly gone in 2018 when I last visited.   Most L.A. stores are very reasonably priced unlike NYC which profited from tourist buyers.

100% Digital (CD/SACD) here.

Happy Listening!