How goes the Canadian sales battle between CDs and vinyl this week?
I did a lot of record shopping when I was in the UK last week. One of the things that surprised me was how so many stores have shifted almost entirely away from CDs. Rough Trade East, one of my favourite record stores in the world, now devotes at least 90% of its floorspace to vinyl. There’s a CD section, but it’s probably no more than 20 square feet. Cassettes? In a glass case next to one of the tills.
Here in Canada, 2024 will end with CDs outselling vinyl in terms of sheer number of units. Two things, though. These numbers only include new vinyl and not any used records sold in indie record stores, at record shows, and online. And second, because vinyl is so much more expensive, records are generating far more revenue than CDs.
With that understanding, here’s how things are shaping up in Canada this week according to Luminate.
- Total CD sales last week: 31,222 (Up 4.4% from last week)
- Total vinyl sales last week: 31,551 (Up 5.7% from a week earlier)
- CDs sold in Canada so far this year: 1,385,765 (Down 11.5% from this point in 2023)
- Vinyl sold in Canada in 2024: 1,239,902 (Up 27.6% from a year ago)
Streaming? It looks like this.
- Songs streamed in Canada last week: 2,760,727,831 (Down 0.7% from last week)
- Songs streamed in Canada this year: 120,025,073,552 (Up 10.1% from a year ago)
