Vinyl Recordings, Though Niche, Experiencing Sales ‘Revival,’ IFPI Says
Vinyl recordings "have seen a revival" in the past few years, with sales increasing by 54.7 percent in 2014 to $346.8 million, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said in a report Friday. The U.S. is the leading…
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market for vinyl sales, IFPI said. Sales in the U.S. in 2014 jumped 52.8 percent from a year earlier to $181.6 million, it said. Australia, where sales climbed 127 percent from 2013 to $6 million, was the top-10 market with the highest growth rate, it said. But vinyl remains “a comparatively niche part of the global recording industry,” with only 2 percent of the industry’s $14.97 billion revenue in 2014, it said. “The recording industry is a portfolio business, offering music in formats from vinyl to streaming,” IFPI CEO Frances Moore said in a statement. “Critics thought vinyl would disappear as a format, but many music fans around the world seem to be falling in love with it again. With the accompanying artwork and liner notes, vinyl records really can be a work of art and a collector’s delight.” IFPI said it released the data on vinyl sales to commemorate the global Record Store Day festivities that were set to take place Saturday. Now in its ninth year, Record Store Day was conceived “as a way to celebrate and spread the word about the unique culture” of 1,400 independently owned record stores in the U.S. and “thousands of similar stores internationally,” its organizers’ website said. There are Record Store Day participating stores on every continent except Antarctica, the organizers said.