US CD Sales Jump 16% in H1 2026, Outpacing Vinyl Growth
According to entertainment data company Luminate's 2026 Midyear Report, the US sold 16.3 million CDs between January and June 2026 — a 16% year-over-year increase that far outpaced vinyl's 2.4% growth over the same period. Vinyl still led all physical formats by volume with 21.8 million units sold, while cassettes moved roughly 205,000 units. Combined, the three physical formats totaled about 38.2 million units, up 7.8% year-over-year.
What's driving the CD rebound
Luminate attributes the CD surge to "collection building," affordable pricing, and a dense K-pop release schedule — particularly BTS's comeback album ARIRANG. The album moved 516,000 physical units in its first week in the US, including 208,000 on vinyl, setting a record for the highest single-week vinyl sales by a group since Luminate began electronic tracking in 1991.
K-pop albums routinely ship in multiple versions bundled with exclusive photocards, posters, and booklets, encouraging fans to buy repeat copies. But even with all K-pop sales excluded, US CD purchases still grew 6.7% compared to the first half of 2025, suggesting the growth isn't driven by one market segment alone.
The report also notes that roughly half of Gen Z and millennial consumers who buy CDs don't own a CD player — the format is increasingly treated as an affordable collectible or piece of merch rather than a listening medium.
Streaming keeps growing too, and the UK vinyl chart tells a different story
The physical resurgence isn't coming at streaming's expense. US on-demand audio streaming grew 4.8% in the first half of the year to 732.7 billion streams, while global streaming rose 9.8% to 2.8 trillion streams.
In the UK vinyl market, Harry Styles's album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally topped the UK vinyl albums chart for H1 2026 with 69,000 copies sold. The vinyl singles chart was led by RAYE's "Where Is My Husband!", with Taylor Swift's "The Fate Of Ophelia" and "Opalite" close behind.
Per NME, despite continued growth in overall music consumption, the UK's Musicians' Union has cited data from the UK Musicians' Census showing that average annual income from music work is just £20,700, with 43% of professional musicians earning less than £14,000 a year from music — underscoring an unresolved question in the industry: how to make sure this growth actually reaches creators.