nme.com/news/music/growth-in-cd-sales-outpaces-vinyl-in-the-us-for-the-first-half-of-2026-3957764

“CD sales have surged by 16 per cent in the US during the first half of 2026, significantly outpacing the growth of vinyl.

The new figures were revealed in entertainment data company Luminate’s 2026 Midyear Report, which found that 16.3million CDs were sold across the country between January and the end of June.

By comparison, vinyl sales grew by a more modest 2.4 per cent year-on-year. However, records remain the more popular of the two formats in terms of units, with 21.8million vinyl albums sold during the same period. Around 205,000 cassettes were also purchased.

Combined sales of CDs, records and cassettes increased by 7.8 per cent to approximately 38.2million units during the first half of the year.

Luminate attributed much of the rapid increase in CD sales to “collection building” and “price accessibility”, as well as a strong schedule of K-pop releases and the arrival of BTS’ hugely successful comeback album ‘ARIRANG’.

The album sold 516,000 physical copies in the US during its opening week, including 208,000 vinyl copies – the biggest weekly vinyl sales total for a group since Luminate began electronically tracking purchases in 1991.
K-pop albums are often sold in multiple versions with exclusive photocards, posters, books and other items, encouraging fans to build collections and purchase several copies of the same record.

However, the increase was not solely driven by BTS or the wider K-pop market. When all K-pop sales were removed from the data, US CD purchases were still up by 6.7 per cent compared with the first half of 2025.
The findings suggest that younger fans are increasingly treating CDs as affordable merchandise and collectable objects rather than simply a way of listening to music.

Approximately half of the Gen Z and millennial consumers buying CDs do not own a CD player, according to the report.

The physical resurgence is taking place alongside continued streaming growth rather than replacing digital listening. US on-demand audio streams rose by 4.8 per cent to 732.7billion during the opening half of the year, while global streams increased by 9.8 per cent to 2.8trillion.“

We all realised vinyl was a scam this year ey

I been on this wave

Very interesting

I own maybe twice as many vinyls as CD's myself. My car or any of the devices in my house dont have a CD player option, but I do own a record player that I love

I get it tho, CD's seem more accessible

It’s been a scam, this whole Vinyl movement was all aesthetics, but no quality.

My 808s CD cases is (literally) chopped to s***/has permanent cocaine residue.

Target is pushing this Tinyvinyl bullshit just to avoid the fact that CDs are making a comeback sooner than later.

Albums I sniffed coke of:

Compton-Dr. Dre
808s and Heartbreaks-Kanye
Toni Braxton-Toni Braxton
Awaken, My Love-Childish Gambino
The E.N.D-Black Eyed Peas

The Coke must’ve been dat good

One time I got pulled over and I threw the bag in my Tetsuo and Youth CD case

Nah, I'm sober now though, I just used to do a lot in my car.

Crine one of my copies of Dark Fantasy has resin on it

probably has nothing to do with cds outpricing vinyl because its now at the same price point that vinyl used to be. labels making people pay $20 for three pieces of plastic notwithstanding of course. and a larger label strategy to make people buy physicals because streaming brings no revenue notwithstanding too of course

but hey what do i know!

only one i've done was to the garden's 2022 album that was not a great summer

Lmaoo they really just trying to remix CDs wtf

Not surprised

• inflationary political and economic measures from the dumbass in Washington have driven up the prices of everything

• Artist/label greed. Check out Frank Ocean's vinyl prices lol. This guy's (an independent artist btw) charging 105$ CAD before taxes and shipping for a copy of channel f***ing orange in big 2026.

• The middle class is increasingly getting squeezed for money, consumers seeing these prices might hesitate from buying.

• the new "first pressing pre-order burn" trend which has emerged in the last couple of years where fans who preorder vinyl versions of of an album get incomplete/demo mixes of the album on vinyl, while the streaming version is different, or has more tracks. Noticeable examples of this are Travis Scott's Utopia, The Weeknd's Hurry Up Tomorrow, or again Frank Ocean's channel ORANGE with no word or notification of these modifications given to fans before purchasing. This experience burns music fans, and dissuades them from buying records, and music as whole imo. Why would fans pay more to give fans an incomplete version of the album? Why wouldn't they just stick to their Spotify subscriptions in that case?

• variant fatigue from the big 3 record labels and AAA artists have caused numerous production delays for other artists, which partially leads to decreased quality control for records being pressed, as pressing plants try to keep up with demand. Again, these quality control shortcomings can increase the sentiment that fans are not getting value for money when purchasing vinyl.

Classic f***ing album
Glad you're sober now

Dorks stopping the performative shii, it’s the same thing as streaming, just play that shii

i had a discman growing up always love that thing

CDs so much better in every way

I know 90% of people that own vinyl play them s***s off their s***ty setup

I think what’s helped is the single device movement. Handful of people moving away streaming, buying their fav albums on CD and using that to either put the files on their mp3 players or they use a portable cd player:

CDs are cool but when you can stream basically everything if I own physical media its gonna something that retains value like Vinyl.

It is cool that you can go to goodwill and actually leave with a good CD for dirt cheap though.

sniffing coke off toni braxton self-titled is f***ing insane

I used to collect vinyl but the last time I checked the prices were so much more expensive