Number of sales: CD vs LP


One of my friend recently told me that the overall sale of LPs surpassed CDs. Can it be true? I thought he was joking, but somehow he was serious.
Well, MP3s and music download certainly has not helped to boost the CD sales, but I think the overall LP sale is still a fraction of CD sales.

Anyway, I've seen steady increase in used LP sales. I could get decent ones at $1~3 about 6~7 years ago, but now it is more like $3~6.
ihcho
Yes, I feel somehow stupid to ask such question here. I knew he was dead long, but he was so convincing, so I was wondering. Yeh, he must be smoking something. More probably he read somewhere about the increase rate of the recent LP sales and misinterpreted it. (His English is a lot worse than mine ;-)
Vinyl is out selling CD's. But it's mainly in Europe. The youth in Europe are buying lots of 45's. What a hoot ay.
Young people want quality instead of ease of use in Europe. I do prefer 45's also but you have to get up alot more when you are listening.
I also heard it is the preferred media in Japan but that could be false. It was told to me by a record store owner, he said a company from Japan was buying used vinyl from him in volume.
I believe that the fallacy began with a quote from the manager of a Virgin Records store in London who said that LPs were outselling CDs at his store. Clearly, even if he was correct, extrapolating this to the broader market is pure fantasy.
LP's are supposedly outselling "other" silver disc sales, such as DVD A, SACD and HDCD (specialty high performance formats).

I don't know where I read that or if it's true but your friend may have confused that with CD sales data.
No way are LPs outselling cds, wavs, mp's, etc. The ratio used to be 1:1000 or thereabouts.

I had some stats fm a few yrs ago and actually posted them on A'gon -- but can't find them now.

Generally, LPs are outselling other small production items such as dvd-a & sacd as Albert notes.

Much of the sales volume comes from the pro sector (DJs) and 45rpm is making a "come back" of sorts srevicing that market.

Value and volume-wise, there seemed to be no stats regarding the used LP business -- apparently, it's quite large in volume but not in value I'd expect.

Overall, the GOOD news is that the business values are sufficient to warrant continued interest from vinyl producers -- so please, all, do buy the odd LP every now & then:)!