Surprisingly, overall album sales, in all formats (CD, digital album, vinyl LP, cassettes, etc.) had their smallest annual drop since 2015. In 2020, total album sales fell just 9.2% to 102.4 million – the first time in annual sales fell by less than 10% since 2015, when volume dropped by only 6% (aided by large sales to Adele’s 25 album).
Overall album sales have been steadily declining since 2012, as consumers increasingly turn to streaming services to enjoy music.
LP vinyl sales accounted for more than a quarter of all album sales in 2020: 26.9% (27.54 million out of 102.4 million). Notably, sales of vinyl LPs accounted for a hefty 40.5% of all physical albums sold in the United States in 2020 (27.54 million out of 68.01 million). Both sums represent the records of the MRC Data era for the market share of vinyl record sales.
In 2020, there were a total of 51 albums that sold at least 50,000 vinyl copies – up from just 23 in 2019.
THE 10 SELLING VINYL ALBUMS OF 2020 IN THE USA
1. Harry Styles, Thin line (232,000)
2. Billie Eilish, When we all fall asleep, where do we go? (196,000)
3. Queen, Greatest hits (176,000)
4. The Beatles, Abbey Road (161,000)
5. Soundtrack, Guardians of the Galaxy, Awesome Mix, vol. 1 (152,000)
6. Bob Marley and the Wailers, Caption: The Best Of… (148,000)
7. Fleetwood Mac, Rumors (138,000)
8. Billie Eilish, Don’t smile at me (126,000)
9. Michael Jackson, Thriller (125,000)
10. Kendrick Lamar, Good Kid, MAAD City (117,000)
Source: MRC data, for the monitoring period from 3 January 2020, until 31 December 2020.
Of the total sales of vinyl LPs in 2020, 11.24 million leaders came through the nontraditional sector of the market, which includes Internet-based retailers (Amazon, etc.), mail ordering and direct consumer sales (as a representative artist’s online store). This total sales of non-traditional vinyl LPs grew 52.5% in 2020, compared to 7.37 million in 2019.
Despite the complications of COVID-19 that caused many physical record stores to have to reimagine how they did business in 2020, the second largest seller of vinyl albums was the independent brick and mortar record stores, with 10.94 million copies. units sold (+ 45.6%). That number was probably increased by the four separate Record Store Day (RSD) promotions in 2020 at independent stores (three drops from RSD, along with RSD Black Friday).
Mass traders such as Target and Walmart were the third largest vinyl seller in 2020, with 3.81 million sold (up 98.5%). The tremendous growth of mass marketers is due to the continued expansion of Target and Walmart into the vinyl market in recent years, with both retailers dedicating more square footage in the store to vinyl and selling their own exclusive vinyl LP variants.