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Sony is restarting production of vinyl records after 30 years. That's pretty surprising. Even more surprising to me though is one of the reasons provided:

in 2016, a format nearly a century old generated 3.6 percent of total global revenues

Now I'm guessing that by global revenues they mean in the music sales market. That sounds astronomically high.

Did vinyl sales account for 3.6% of the music sales market (or any other market) in 2016?

David says Reinstate Monica
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  • Maybe those old vinyl records go for high prices nowadays. Just like other antiques. Let's see ... *Elvis Presley's first recording, "My Happiness," sold at auction for $300,000*. Maybe just a few sales like that could equal your 3.6 percent. – GEdgar Jun 30 '17 at 00:40
  • @GEdgar I would highly doubt it. I suspect that would be vastly over-shadowed by digital music sales. Also I think they mean newly made vinyl, not some original copies from 60 years ago. – David says Reinstate Monica Jun 30 '17 at 00:45
  • This actually doesn't sound that unreasonable to me. In the United States at least vinyl has had a bit of a resurgence as a quasi-collectors edition release. I seem to recall that Barnes & Nobles carried vinyl awhile back of major artists (e.g., Taylor Swift) and the records typically included a download code for the MP3s as well (ex., http://store.taylorswift.com/1989-VINYL.html ). – rjzii Jun 30 '17 at 02:22
  • Why do you find it surprising? Vinyl costs way more than digital, so revenue is higher per album. And there are plenty of people who love this format, for their own reasons. Classic rock, blues, jazz, etc., are very popular on vinyl. If you look at best sellers, lots of older albums are still sold a lot on vinyl, only few of them are new releases. (Also, unlike digital, they do age, so I assume some people would buy reissues to replace older ones). – sashkello Jun 30 '17 at 02:57
  • That article references another [NPR article](http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/04/25/525571787/global-record-business-saw-sizable-growth-last-year-thanks-to-streaming) that references the IFPI's Global Music Report. The [free overview](http://www.ifpi.org/downloads/GMR2017.pdf) doesn't make the claim. The full report is £2,250.00. (Academic package is as low as £500. Anyone want to fork out the dosh?) – Oddthinking Jun 30 '17 at 03:53
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    Okay, we've established that in some people's opinions, this factoid is astonishing, and in some people's opinions it is mundane. That makes it perfect for Skeptics.SE, but let's not discuss our opinions any further here. – Oddthinking Jun 30 '17 at 03:54
  • Just to point out, a lot of people who pay for music these days don't "buy it", they sign up to a subscription service such as spotify, google play music, apple music etc. AFAIK this revenue wouldn't be included as "music sales",which would inflate the the sales of vinyl as a percentage of the whole. Someone correct me if I'm wrong though – Some_Guy Jul 06 '17 at 09:44

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Billboard published an article summarizing the report on which this claim is based: China Rising & Downloads Falling: 5 Takeaways From the IFPI's Global Music Report.

The reported total recorded music sales in 2016 was $15.7 billion. Of that, $563.6 million was from vinyl sales.

That's 3.6% when rounded to the nearest tenth of a percent.

D Krueger
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