Checking on the Canadian sales battle between CDs and vinyl

Vinyl hasn’t outsold CDs in, what, 35 years? CDs are still king, but with sales falling on a weekly and year-over-year basis, it might not be long before that happens again. Remember, too, that these weekly reports only count sales of new vinyl and don’t deal with all the used records sold in indie stores, record shows, and online. And one more thing: Because vinyl is more expensive than CDs, the former is already outgrossing the shiny discs.

Sales data (via Luminate) for the week ending May 16, 2024.

• Total CDs sales so far this year: 603,687 (down -16.9% from this time last year)
• Total vinyl sales so far this year: 563,874 (up 36.0% from a year ago)
• CDs sold last week: 31,542 (down 15.8% from the week before)
• Vinyl sold last week: 27,632 (down 10.9% from the week before)

Streaming? Sure. Canadians listened to 2.804 billion songs last week. That brings the annual total to 50,905,649,742.