The Rise and fall of CD

[Soniclife]

... or the fall and rise of vinyl.

https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/

Not sure if this has been posted before, interesting interactive chart of different format sales over the years.

One amazing stat is adjusted for inflation in 2007 the ringtone market made more than CD did last year, there should never have been a market for ringtones in my opinion, let alone one bigger than a proper music format.

SACD may be the only format in history which made more money in its first year than any subsequent year.

It looks to have taken quite a while for the public to embrace streaming, given that lots of people probably didn't need to buy new hardware it shows the mindset change required.

 

[Grave]

I do not think I will ever be willing to pay constantly for streaming. I will probably buy CD's indefinitely.

 

[Soniclife]

They have added 2018 data to this now, CD continues to decline fast.

If CD follows the pattern of cassette it might be gone in 7 years, but I'd guessing it will be more like vinyl and only almost disappear.

It's fascinating data, the inflation adjusted market has recovered to it's pre-CD revenue dip, but there seems little chance of it getting anywhere near what CD sales brought in.

 

[Juhazi]

This is a global report https://www.ifpi.org/downloads/GMR2019.pdf
Homepage of IFPI

And here some analysis https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/25811/006_03_Laing.pdf?sequence=1

And here is USA market by revenue, showing the business value of streaming better. This is comparable to the global stats above.
Homepage of RIAA

 

[danadam]

Another version of the same graph from reddit 30 Years of the Music Industry, Visualised. [OC]: