VinylAI Vinyl by year
Every year of U.S. vinyl revenue: 1978 peak, 2005 floor, 2025 recovery
The full run: every year of American vinyl revenue the RIAA has published, in the dollars of the day and in 2025 dollars, alongside what share of the whole recorded-music market vinyl held that year. The table is complete — all 53 years — so the number you need is on the page rather than behind a control.
- Source
- RIAA, RIAJ, BPI, BVMI, SNEP, IFPI
- Coverage
- 53 years · 23 formats
- Measure
- Wholesale revenue
- Updated
- 2026-09-13
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
The figures worth quoting
Every statement is derived from the table below; the basis line shows the arithmetic.
- 01
U.S. vinyl revenue reached $1.04bn in 2025 — its highest in nominal dollars since 1982.
LP/EP, wholesale, 2025. 1982 is the most recent earlier year whose nominal figure was larger.
- 02
Adjusted for inflation, that 2025 figure is 14.1% of vinyl's 1978 peak of $7.41bn in 2025 dollars.
$1.04bn ÷ $7.41bn, both in 2025 dollars.
- 03
U.S. vinyl bottomed out in 2005 at $8.6m — $14.2m in 2025 dollars.
Lowest value in the LP/EP series after 1980, inflation-adjusted.
- 04
In 2025 dollars, vinyl now earns what it last earned in 1987.
$1.04bn in 2025; 1987 is the most recent earlier year whose inflation-adjusted figure was larger.
- 05
Vinyl has grown every year since its 2005 floor — 20 consecutive years of nominal growth.
Each year after 2005 exceeds the one before it; 20 of 20 years qualify.
- 06
Vinyl revenue in 2025 is more than double what it was as recently as 2019, in 2025 dollars.
Most recent year whose inflation-adjusted figure is under half of 2025's.
- 07
Vinyl's richest stretch was 1973–1979: $41.96bn in 2025 dollars, when the format was 63.2% of the American music industry.
Sum of LP/EP, inflation-adjusted, by decade. The 1970s cover 1973–1979 because the series starts in 1973.
- 08
Vinyl is averaging $866m a year in the 2020s, against $5.99bn a year in 1973–1979 — 14.5% of the old rate, in the same dollars.
Per-year averages, inflation-adjusted: neither span is a full ten years, so totals would not compare.
- 09
Vinyl singles are a separate, much smaller line: $15.2m in 2025, against $831m at their 1979 peak in 2025 dollars.
Vinyl Single, wholesale. RIAA counts 7-inch singles apart from LP/EP.
Vinyl revenue, every year from 1973
| Year | Nominal | 2025 dollars | Share of market | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1973 | $756m | $5.48bn | 64.4% | — |
| 1974 | $822m | $5.37bn | 64.2% | 9% |
| 1975 | $901m | $5.39bn | 64.7% | 10% |
| 1976 | $1.01bn | $5.71bn | 63.4% | 12% |
| 1977 | $1.33bn | $7.07bn | 65.2% | 32% |
| 1978 | $1.50bn | $7.41bn | 62.4% | 13% |
| 1979 | $1.25bn | $5.53bn | 58.7% | -17% |
| 1980 | $1.33bn | $5.21bn | 62.3% | 7% |
| 1981 | $1.42bn | $5.03bn | 61.5% | 6% |
| 1982 | $1.17bn | $3.90bn | 55.7% | -18% |
| 1983 | $1.02bn | $3.31bn | 47.3% | -12% |
| 1984 | $939m | $2.91bn | 38.2% | -8% |
| 1985 | $777m | $2.32bn | 31.5% | -17% |
| 1986 | $596m | $1.75bn | 22.8% | -23% |
| 1987 | $481m | $1.36bn | 15.4% | -19% |
| 1988 | $323m | $878m | 9.2% | -33% |
| 1989 | $134m | $347m | 3.6% | -59% |
| 1990 | $52.5m | $129m | 1.2% | -61% |
| 1991 | $17.8m | $42.1m | 0.4% | -66% |
| 1992 | $8.2m | $18.8m | 0.2% | -54% |
| 1993 | $6.4m | $14.3m | 0.1% | -21% |
| 1994 | $10.8m | $23.5m | 0.2% | 68% |
| 1995 | $15.2m | $32.2m | 0.2% | 41% |
| 1996 | $22.3m | $45.8m | 0.3% | 47% |
| 1997 | $20.2m | $40.5m | 0.3% | -10% |
| 1998 | $20.6m | $40.7m | 0.3% | 2% |
| 1999 | $19.3m | $37.3m | 0.2% | -6% |
| 2000 | $16.8m | $31.4m | 0.2% | -13% |
| 2001 | $16.6m | $30.2m | 0.2% | -1% |
| 2002 | $12.4m | $22.3m | 0.2% | -25% |
| 2003 | $13.2m | $23.0m | 0.2% | 6% |
| 2004 | $11.7m | $20.0m | 0.2% | -11% |
| 2005 | $8.6m | $14.2m | 0.1% | -26% |
| 2006 | $9.5m | $15.2m | 0.1% | 11% |
| 2007 | $13.9m | $21.6m | 0.2% | 46% |
| 2008 | $34.4m | $51.4m | 0.7% | 148% |
| 2009 | $38.7m | $58.1m | 0.8% | 13% |
| 2010 | $53.9m | $79.6m | 1.2% | 39% |
| 2011 | $72.4m | $104m | 1.5% | 34% |
| 2012 | $97.5m | $137m | 2% | 35% |
| 2013 | $128m | $178m | 2.6% | 32% |
| 2014 | $153m | $209m | 3.2% | 19% |
| 2015 | $210m | $285m | 4.4% | 37% |
| 2016 | $225m | $302m | 4.3% | 7% |
| 2017 | $246m | $323m | 4.3% | 9% |
| 2018 | $268m | $344m | 4.1% | 9% |
| 2019 | $322m | $405m | 4.4% | 20% |
| 2020 | $427m | $531m | 5.3% | 33% |
| 2021 | $679m | $807m | 6.9% | 59% |
| 2022 | $800m | $880m | 7.8% | 18% |
| 2023 | $906m | $957m | 8.2% | 13% |
| 2024 | $954m | $980m | 8.5% | 5% |
| 2025 | $1.04bn | $1.04bn | 9% | 9% |
LP/EP only; RIAA reports vinyl singles separately. "Share" is vinyl as a percentage of all U.S. recorded-music revenue that year. Wholesale dollars — what labels receive, not what shoppers pay.
Reading this table without getting it wrong
The two dollar columns answer different questions. The nominal column is what was actually invoiced that year and is the right one for "vinyl passed $1bn". The 2025 column removes inflation and is the right one for any sentence comparing decades — without it, 1978 looks smaller than 2025, which is the opposite of the truth.
These are wholesale dollars: the money labels receive, not consumer spending. Retail value runs roughly half as much again. If a sentence says "Americans spent X on vinyl", this is the wrong figure for it.
Take the data, cite the source
Licensed CC BY 4.0. Credit the trade body that produced the figures — a link back lets your readers check the slice. Every file carries its source, measure and retrieval date in its own header.
Writing about this? The figures above are also available as embeddable charts — one line of HTML, no script, and the widget keeps its source line so your readers can check it.
Machine readers: every page here has a markdown twin at index.md, the statements above are served as structured claims in the page's JSON-LD, and facts.json carries all of them with their arithmetic. The catalogue entry lives at /.well-known/ai-catalog.json.
Everything behind this page
- 01
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
U.S. Sales Database / U.S. Recorded Music Analysis
1973–2025, 23 formats, wholesale revenue, nominal and inflation-adjusted · retrieved 2026-09-13
Figures were read from the published data extract behind RIAA’s own dashboard, last updated 2 August 2026 — not re-typed from a news report.
https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/ - 02
Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ)
RIAJ Yearbook 2025 — Statistics for Physical Products
1994–2024, vinyl production in units and yen · retrieved 2026-09-13
Parsed from the Yearbook’s own production tables. Every parsed row was checked against the table’s printed Total; all 31 rows reconcile.
https://www.riaj.or.jp/f/en/data/ - 03
British Phonographic Industry (BPI)
UK recorded music market 2025
2025 vinyl revenue, growth and physical share · retrieved 2026-09-13
https://www.bpi.co.uk/news/13097053 - 04
Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI)
Musikindustrie in Deutschland 2025
2025 German market, physical segment, vinyl share and growth · retrieved 2026-09-13
Read in the German original. BVMI’s English edition renders the 44.2% share ambiguously; the German text attributes it to vinyl (die Schallplatte) unambiguously.
https://www.musikindustrie.de/presse/presseinformationen/musikindustrie-in-deutschland-2025 - 05
SNEP
Bilan 2025 du marché de la musique enregistrée
2025 French market and vinyl revenue · retrieved 2026-09-13
https://snepmusique.com/communiques-dossiers-de-presse/bilan-2025-snep/ - 06
IFPI
Global Music Report 2026
2025 global revenue, vinyl and physical growth · retrieved 2026-09-13
https://www.ifpi.org/global-music-report-2026-global-recorded-music-revenues-grow-6-4-as-record-companies-drive-innovation/
The rest of the dataset
Built by VinylAI Market, where each release has a card with condition-by-condition values and listings from sellers worldwide. Spotted an error, or know a trade body publishing a series we should add? Tell us — corrections are published with the date they were made.