CDs strike back: in the US they overtake vinyl. Streaming and K-pop drive the market. All the data from Luminate

The music industry keeps growing, but it's doing so along increasingly peculiar lines. That's what emerges from the "Mid-Year Report 2026" published by Luminate, the traditional mid-year report that takes a snapshot of the recorded music market. Among the most notable findings are the rise in streaming, the comeback of the compact disc, the growing weight of catalog, and the decisive role of K-pop in reviving physical sales.

Streaming keeps climbing

In the first six months of 2026, on-demand audio streaming kept racking up record numbers. Globally, streams came close to 2.8 trillion, while overall streaming consumption grew by 9.8% compared to the same period in 2025, confirming that digital remains the main engine driving the music industry.
Another now well-established trend concerns the growing weight of catalog. Songs released more than 60 months ago continue to account for an ever-larger share of listening. The phenomenon is especially clear in rock: around 75% of streams come from catalog songs, confirming that the music of the past has become one of the industry's most profitable assets.

The CD's revenge

Among the report's surprises is the comeback of the compact disc. In the United States, CD sales grew by 16% compared to the first half of 2025, a far sharper rise than vinyl's, which was up just 2.4%. In the first six months of the year, 16.3 million CDs were sold, against 21.8 million vinyl records. Vinyl remains the best-selling physical format in absolute terms, but the CD's growth rate shows that the optical format is going through a genuine revival. Cassette tapes also remained essentially stable, with around 205,000 copies sold.

K-pop is driving physical sales

According to Luminate, the CD's revival is down to several factors. On one hand, there's the ever-rising price of vinyl; on the other, the business model developed by K-pop. Korean labels keep releasing albums in numerous different editions, packed with photobooks, postcards, posters and other exclusive merchandise that push fans to buy multiple copies of the same title.
The most striking case is BTS: their new album "ARIRANG" topped half a million physical copies sold in the United States in its first week alone. However, Luminate points out that the phenomenon doesn't depend solely on K-pop: even stripping Korean pop entirely out of the analysis, CD sales are still up compared to 2025.
At the same time, though, the market's distribution is also shifting: independent record stores are losing ground, dropping from 36.6% of the market a year ago to 32.1%.

Collecting before listening

One of the more curious aspects to emerge from the report concerns the habits of Gen Z and many Millennials. Roughly half of CD buyers don't actually own a player to listen to them on. The compact disc is thus taking on a value increasingly similar to official merchandise: it becomes a collector's item, a token of one's connection to the artist, while actual listening still happens almost exclusively via streaming platforms.

Genres: winners and losers

On the genre front, hip-hop and R&B keep their lead, especially in the US market, but are showing a slight slowdown: consumption is down 1.6% compared to last year. The main drag is R&B's decline, which after accounting for around 40% of the "Billboard Hot 100" in 2023 now makes up just over 30% of the chart.
Dance music and EDM, by contrast, are booming, up 18.9% year-on-year in the United States. World music is also doing well, posting an 11.9% increase.

The market boom doesn't match the musicians' boom

The sector's positive results reopen the debate over how revenue is distributed. While the big stars keep generating billions in profits, the economic situation for most musicians remains far more complicated. The Musicians' Union points to data from the latest UK Musicians' Census, according to which the average annual income from music-related work is around £20,700, while 43% of professionals earn less than £14,000 a year. A gap that shows how the growth of the music industry and the comeback of physical formats continue to mainly benefit major labels and the most successful artists, still leaving most independent musicians on the sidelines.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google