A mid-term report from a key body in the music industry suggest that many have fallen out of love with buying and owning CDs.
Are we heading for a CD-less future? The stats from RIAA's (Recording Industry Association of America) could indicate so.
Mid-year sales for compact discs 2018 tanked according to the RIAA, with $245million (€208 million) made in the first half of 2018 – that’s a drop of over $200 since 2017, where sales for the first 6 months of the year totalled $420million (€357 million).
The RIAA states that in same period in the US total sales of units declined from 35 million to 18.6 million.
What’s this decline of over 41% down to? Well, the stats indicate people are still paying for music – they just are streaming more as revenue across all recorded music was actually up 10% (to a cool $4.6/€3.9 billion). Revenue from streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal’s paid offerings hit accounted for a healthy $2.5/€2.1 billion of that.
In contrast to the CD market’s woes, vinyl ownership seeing resurgence in recent years clearly indicates we are not completely heading to a digital future anytime soon.