Vinyl Sales are up in 2024: Luminate report of 33% decline under fire

After music sales data leader Luminate published data showing a 33% decline in 2024 vinyl sales, those directly involved in the sector offered stats showing that vinyl sales are up and an explanation for the discrepancy.

Vinyl Sales are up in 2024: Luminate report of 33% decline is under fire

by Sam Tornow and Nicole Raney from Discogs

Starting on October 14, 2024, news outlets including Yahoo and NME reported that year-over-year, the U.S. vinyl market was down 33 percent. The data for these articles came from a weekly report from Billboard called “Market Watch,” which automatically updates with data provided by the company Luminate. Amid the vinyl revolution, this news signified a shift in buyer habits: a sales decline among vinyl for the first time in 17 years. 

On October 15, Discogs contacted Chris Muratore, director of partnerships at Luminate, who confirmed that the reported data is incorrect. Vinyl sales are actually up 6.2 percent. Billboard has since added language to their “Market Watch” report, clearing up the error. 

Luminate has been the gold standard for physical music sales numbers for decades. However, at the beginning of this year, the company changed its reporting process, frustrating many record store owners and industry personnel. 

Vinyl Sales are up in 2024

The previous reporting process, which was in place for over 30 years, involved sampling independent stores to extrapolate sales of CDs, vinyl, and cassettes for the entire U.S. marketplace. 

The new system, implemented on December 29, 2023, the first day of Luminate’s 2024 calendar, involves counting actual sales from independent stores in the entire U.S. market. 

In Luminate’s mid-year report, the company stated: “While the new modeled methodology more accurately represents the independent retail market, we do not have comparable historical data to provide an accurate year-over-year trend. Therefore, independent retail physical sales are not included in our H1 2024 vs. H1 2023 U.S. physical sales reporting.”

The “Market Watch” report has displayed incorrect year-over-year data since the methodology changed.

Taking this year-over-year methodology into account, Luminate now claims that vinyl sales are up 6.2 percent. This number does not include independent record stores from 2023 or 2024.

Labels, Stores See Increases in Sales

Billy Fields, vice president of retail/commercial services & vinyl strategist at Warner Music Group, spotted the incorrect reporting early and believes the updated figures Luminate has reported fit with what he has seen across the industry. 

“By all available measures, the vinyl business is up in 2024,” said Fields. “Whether you’d rather look at the RIAA mid-year report, which shows that vinyl shipments to retail accelerated faster than any other major music format to rise 17 percent, or you’d like to look at Luminate’s measurement of the U.S. physical business, which shows that vinyl is up 6.2 percent, well, either one is an accurate and timely view of the business of vinyl.”

From an on-the-ground, anecdotal perspective, Luke Sardello, co-owner of Josey Records in Dallas, Texas, has also seen an upward trend across all physical mediums. 

“Josey is opening a new store in November as business is still continuing to increase and is on an upward trend,” said Sardello. “We are also seeing a marked increase in CD sales, new and used, with a much younger demographic at play than you would expect.”

To get an idea of how the independent record stores that Luminate surveyed have performed, in the aforementioned mid-year report, Lumniate claimed that on weeks 23-26, under the new methodology, Independent record stores accounted for 40.1 percent of all vinyl sales in the U.S.

Many independent record store owners think that number is much larger, though.

Luminate Changes Methodologies

When Luminate changed the method for tracking sales from independent record stores, many owners felt left out. Some even protested the change by refusing to report data. 

In November of 2023, just before the change, Luminate reported 93 percent coverage of the total U.S. physical market and 95 percent of U.S. independent retail stores that reach over 1,000 sales per week.

As of publication, Streetpulse, the company Lumniate is partnering with to obtain data from independent record stores, is reporting that they receive data from 409 stores that meet the outlined criteria. 

However, Record Store Day reports that there are nearly 1400 independently owned record stores in the U.S., and a report from IBIS World in August 2024 claims that there are 2,031 record stores. 

While neither claims have weekly sales information, there is a massive discrepancy between Streetpulse’s numbers and both of the latter sources, implying that most mid to small-sized independent record stores are not being reported on.

Travis Searle and Lisa Foster, co-owners of Guestroom Records in Louisville, Ky. believe that the new methodology gives additional weight to large retailers. Additionally, Foster claims that “stores that report are small in relation to stores overall.”

“Unweighted sales equal unreliable representations of what’s happening on the ground in record stores and vinyl culture writ large,” the owners wrote in an email to Discogs. “Generalizing sales trends on vinyl with numbers that greatly favor major retail over independent retail leads to inaccurate depictions of the vinyl marketplace.”

Reports from Luminate (even the updated one) also don’t account for resale, a major part of many independent record stores’ business. Sardello claims that the reports “[don’t] account for the overall health of the music business, including pre-owned products, which has also continued to increase.”

President at Music Business Association Portia Sabin, who has been an advocate for the new reporting system, says that the Luminate and Streetpulsing are constantly improving, and hopes more stores will report. 

“Streetpulse has been adding point of sale systems to their capabilities all year so they can capture all the ways that people can report, and they’ve streamlined the reporting process,” Sabin wrote in an email to Discogs. “Luminate has been great about that, too. It’s a far cry from prior years when the process of becoming a reporter was very difficult. It’s important to get the word out to retailers that Streetpulse is willing to work with everyone and help everyone, regardless of how they record. Even if they write things on a piece of paper, it’s better to get them connected with Streetpulse than not!  Luminate can only report sales that are reported to them, and I hope every retailer can find a way to get their data to Streetpulse to have it counted. That benefits everyone in the whole system and is more accurate, of course.”