The rise and fall of CD sales in the US

The media or formats used to sell music have been continually renewed over the last four decades. From vinyl records we have moved on to streaming music services, which has an increasing number of subscribers and a variety of additional systems.

One of them is the CD. Converted over the years -especially in the late 1990s and early 1990s- into the great support of the music industry, today CD sales continue falling year after year, as can be seen in the following graph produced by Statista based on data provided by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on music sales in the United States.

In 2000, 943 million CDs were sold in the United States, the highest figure reached by this group. Since then, the annual units sold have been reduced by 90% (99 million CDs in 2016).

In 2016, streaming service revenues produced, represent the 51% of total music sales in the United States.

Infographic: The Rise and Fall of the Compact Disc | Statista You will find more infographics at Statista