What's My Age Again? CD Sales Grow For First Time Since 2004

The days of purchasing CDs as a way to listen to music are long gone — or are they?

In 2021, streaming music took an 83% market share of all music consumed. Just behind that were vinyl records, at a much smaller 6.9%.

What Happened: CD sales have been declining for 16 straight years, shrinking from $11.4 billion in annualized sales in 2004 to just $584.2 million in 2021.

Yet 2021 marks the first year in 16 years that CD sales have reversed, showing growth. In 2020, annualized revenues for CD sales were $483.2 million.

Provided by the Recording Industry Association of America

Compared to vinyl, CDs are able to produce a wider dynamic range and more bass, according to Gear Patrol. 

Why It's Important: CDs offer high fidelity files, as compared to streaming services like Spotify SPOT and Apple's AAPL Apple Music, which compress the music files to take up less space, resulting in less vibrant-sounding music.

Streaming services have been piqued to this notion — now, services like Tidal offer lossless or uncompressed audio files that are able to deliver audio quality similar to CDs.