CD Revenue Surged Nearly 60% in First Half of 2026
The jump follows another recent report showing CD unit sales up 16% YoY, solidifying the format's surprising comeback. CD Revenue Surged Nearly 60% in First Half of 2026 Alex Krinsky
For a hot minute, CDs seemed destined to do little more than collect dust — nostalgic remnants sealed in jewel cases and forgotten in the back of the car. Now, they’re one of the fastest-growing parts of the recorded music industry.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America’s new mid-year report , US CD revenue jumped 58.6% during the first half of 2026, reaching $171 million. That’s up from roughly $108 million over the same stretch last year and is the sharpest percentage increase of any category highlighted in RIAA’s report.
The new figures arrive just a couple of months after another report showed CDs gaining ground at the cash register, too. As Consequence previously reported , Luminate found that US CD sales increased 16% to 16.3 million units during the first half of 2026, while vinyl sales rose just 2.4%.
K-pop has played a sizable role in that growth, thanks in part to collectible packaging and multiple album variants, but it doesn’t account for all of it. Even with K-pop releases removed, Luminate found CD sales were still up 6.7%.
It’s worth noting that the two reports aren’t measuring the same thing. Luminate tracks consumer sales, while the RIAA report looks at wholesale revenue net of returns. Taken together, though, they paint a pretty clear picture: more CDs are being sold, and they’re bringing in a lot more money than they were a year ago.
Meanwhile, downloads continued their long slide. Overall download revenue fell 12.7%, while individual song download revenue dropped 13.7%.
So, CDs aren’t about to take streaming’s crown 2026 is still 2026. But for a format that spent years being treated like dead technology, nearly 60% revenue growth is hard to ignore.
Reported by Consequence · presented in full by the Europes Room.
