New Study Uncovers Shocking Statistic About US Vinyl Buyers

Vinyl sales have been on the up in recent years—the format outsold CDs in 2022 for the first time since 1987—but it looks like the same can't be said for record players.

As Music Business Worldwide point out, a new study conducted by Luminate shows that half of US vinyl owners don't actually own a turntable. The “Top Entertainment Trends for 2023” report showed that out of 3,900 US survey respondents, “50% of consumers who have bought vinyl in the past 12 months own a record player, compared to 15% among music listeners overall.”

You might be thinking, why would someone buy music they can't listen to? And there are two types of people that could play into it: collectors and super fans. Collectors may be looking for rare records while super fans may simply want a visual representation of the music. In 2022, pop ruled the vinyl landscape with the top three best-selling records being Taylor Swift's Midnights (945,000), Harry Styles’ Harry’s House (480,000), and Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR (263,000), which all happen to be artists with diehard fan bases.

Although vinyl sales may be on the upswing, the digital platform still reigns supreme. In 2022, 84% of music revenue came from streaming services.