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CD Sales Surge 45.7% as Physical Media Comeback Continues, RIAA Says

RIAA data show CD sales jumped 45.7% in H1 2026, bolstering the emerging physical media trend; streaming revenue still leads.

AI News Feed · 2026-09-06 03:45

The RIAA said 17.5 million CDs were sold in the first six months of 2026, up from 12 million in the same period a year earlier. Revenue rose 58.6 percent to $171.1 million. The jump stands out because CD sales had fallen 22 percent between 2024 and 2025.

Research firm Luminate also detected the boom, reporting 16.3 million CDs sold in the first half in a July report. Luminate attributed much of the growth to special-edition releases from K-pop acts such as BTS, saying many Gen Z and millennial buyers treat CDs as collectibles; only about half of those buyers own a CD player, Luminate found. The two firms use different measurement methods, which helps explain the slight difference in their totals.

Vinyl continued its resurgence as well, with unit sales climbing nearly 21 percent year over year to 26.5 million. Other physical formats — CD singles, DVDs, cassettes, SACD and DVD-Audio among them — surged more than 73 percent to 1.6 million units.

Streaming remains dominant despite the revival of physical media. Streaming revenue grew 4.7 percent to $4.9 billion in the first half, dwarfing all physical media formats combined.