Music Industry

Here’s our weekly update on the Canadian sales race between vinyl and CDs (includes Record Store Day stats).

Vinyl has been making the industry more money than CDs for some time now, largely because it costs more and the margins are higher. But CDs are hanging in there, selling in greater numbers. However, the sales gap is closing. (Vinyl probably has already pulled ahead if we included the unaccountable used vinyl sold through indie record stores, record shows, and online. But I digress…)

The week ending April 25 is especially interesting because this data includes sales from Record Store Day, which happened on April 20.

  • Total CDs sold year-to-date: 534,683 (down 17.3% from the same point in 2023)
  • Total vinyl LPs sold year-to-date: 505,213 (up 35.1% from 2023)
  • Total CD sales last week: 64,0267. (A whopping 112.7% increase from the week before. That’s a lot of Taylor Swift and some Record Store Day spillover.)
  • Total LP sales last week: 68,234 (Up 160.5% from the previous week.)

The Tay-Tay effect spilled over into total album sales (up 120.6%), digital albums (up 86.5%) and digital tracks (up 7.4%).

On-demand audio streams were up, too, moving to 2.806 billion songs, an increase of 0.5% from the previous week. Year-to-date, streaming is up 11.6%.

All figures courtesy Luminate.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39149 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

One thought on “Here’s our weekly update on the Canadian sales race between vinyl and CDs (includes Record Store Day stats).

  • Hi Alan. Do you happen to know how much Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department sold last week in Canada?

    Reply

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