Album sales in the United States are increasingly split between a strong physical niche and a much larger streaming economy. In 2024, vinyl albums sold 44 million units, while CDs sold 33 million, and U.S. streaming revenue reached $14.8777 billion. These figures come from the RIAA 2024 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report and Luminate year-end reports; the title-level historical figures below retain their original reporting periods.
Contents
- The 2024 U.S. format picture
- Vinyl and CD sales
- Downloads and streaming
- How listeners buy physical albums
- What the leading 2023 albums sold
- Album sales figures from 2022
The 2024 U.S. format picture
The clearest high-level fact is the size difference between streaming and every album-sale format. The RIAA reported $14.8777 billion in total U.S. streaming revenue in 2024, with year-over-year growth of 3.6%. Average paid on-demand music subscriptions reached 100 million, up 3% from 2023. Those measurements describe the U.S. recorded-music market for 2024, not album units alone, but they provide the commercial context in which albums are released and consumed.
Physical music revenue reached $2.0 billion in the United States in 2024, up 5% year over year, according to the RIAA 2024 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report. Vinyl generated $1.4 billion, up 7%, while CD revenue totaled $541 million, up 1%. The revenue figures show that physical music remained a substantial business even though streaming was much larger.
Luminate reported that streaming represented 91.3% of equivalent music activity in the United States in 2024. “Equivalent music activity” is a broader activity measure than physical album sales, so it should not be read as a share of albums sold. It does, however, show why a modern album’s commercial reach cannot be assessed from physical units alone.
The 2024 figures also show a market that is growing more slowly in the United States than in several international streaming markets. Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Music Report preview recorded ex-U.S. audio-streaming growth of 17.3% year over year, compared with 6.4% growth in the United States. Brazil’s premium streams rose 18.8%, France’s rose 11.6%, and Indonesia’s rose 8.7% in the same reporting period. These are streaming-growth statistics, not album-sales totals, and the geography matters: each figure is tied to its named market or to the ex-U.S. aggregate.
Vinyl and CD sales
Vinyl was the largest physical format by both revenue and units in the 2024 RIAA figures. U.S. vinyl albums sold 44 million units, and vinyl revenue reached $1.4 billion. CDs sold 33 million units and produced $541 million in revenue. The two formats therefore combined for 77 million reported album units, but the supplied reports do not establish that every unit was priced or classified identically, so the unit counts should not be used to calculate an average price.
| U.S. format or category | 2024 result | Year-over-year change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical music revenue | $2.0 billion | Up 5% | RIAA 2024 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report |
| Vinyl revenue | $1.4 billion | Up 7% | RIAA 2024 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report |
| Vinyl albums sold | 44 million units | Not supplied | RIAA 2024 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report |
| CD revenue | $541 million | Up 1% | RIAA 2024 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report |
| CDs sold | 33 million units | Not supplied | RIAA 2024 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report |
Luminate added a retail-channel perspective: independent record stores accounted for nearly 4 in 10 vinyl sales in the United States in 2024. That statistic is a channel share, rather than a count of vinyl units. It indicates that independent stores retained a meaningful role in the format even as e-commerce became the dominant route for physical albums overall.
For electronic music readers, the vinyl figures are especially relevant to the album as an object: the market supports a physical format whose appeal is not captured by streaming activity alone. The available statistics do not identify electronic music’s share of the 44 million vinyl albums, so no genre-specific unit estimate can be made from these figures.
Downloads and streaming
Digital downloads moved in the opposite direction from vinyl in 2024. The RIAA reported U.S. digital-download revenue of $336 million, down 18% year over year. Download album units fell to 16.8 million, and download album revenue fell to $166.7 million. The same report put total U.S. digital-download revenue at $369.7 million, down 14.9% year over year.
The distinction between the two download numbers matters. The $166.7 million figure is specifically download album revenue, while the $369.7 million figure is total digital-download revenue. They are not interchangeable measures. Similarly, 16.8 million refers to download album units, not every type of paid download.
Digital downloads accounted for just 2% of U.S. recorded-music revenues in 2024, according to the RIAA 2024 Year-End Music Industry Revenue Report. At their 2012 peak, digital downloads represented 43% of U.S. recorded-music revenues. The two percentages describe the changing revenue position of downloads across the U.S. market, with 2012 as the peak comparison year and 2024 as the later measurement year.
Streaming was the dominant digital category in the 2024 figures. Total U.S. streaming revenue reached $14.8777 billion, while average paid on-demand subscriptions reached 100 million. Luminate’s 91.3% share for streaming equivalent activity uses a different measurement framework from the RIAA revenue figures, so the statistics should be read side by side rather than combined into one calculation.
Luminate also reported that 79.5% of U.S. on-demand audio streams in 2024 came from songs released in 2010 or later. Nearly one in two U.S. on-demand audio streams came from tracks released between 2020 and 2024. These figures concern song streams, not album purchases, but they show that recent music remained a major part of listening activity alongside the catalog.
How listeners buy physical albums
The route from an album release to a sale has become an important part of the U.S. physical market. Luminate’s 2024 Year-End Music Report found that 58% of all U.S. physical album sales occurred through e-commerce platforms. For the U.S. Top 200 albums, direct-to-consumer sales made up 63% of first-week physical album sales and 31.9% of first-week album activity in 2024.
Those percentages use different denominators. The 63% figure is limited to first-week physical album sales among the U.S. Top 200 albums. The 31.9% figure covers first-week album activity among that same Top 200 group. The figures should therefore not be treated as contradictory: one focuses on physical sales, while the other measures a broader first-week activity concept.
| Buying or activity measure | U.S. 2024 share | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Physical album sales through e-commerce | 58% | All U.S. physical album sales |
| Direct-to-consumer first-week physical sales | 63% | U.S. Top 200 albums |
| Direct-to-consumer first-week album activity | 31.9% | U.S. Top 200 albums |
| Vinyl sales through independent record stores | Nearly 4 in 10 | U.S. vinyl sales |
Taken together, these statistics describe a physical market that is increasingly connected to online storefronts and artist-owned or artist-linked sales channels. They do not show how many copies were sold by electronic artists specifically, nor do they establish whether a particular product was vinyl, CD, or another physical configuration.
What the leading 2023 albums sold
Luminate’s 2023 Year-End Report recorded a highly concentrated U.S. Top Album Sales chart. Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) led with 1.975 million units. Midnights ranked second with 973,000, and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) ranked third with 908,000 units. The supplied title-level figures also report 909,000 sales for Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), so both figures are retained as reported rather than reconciled without the underlying methodology.
| 2023 U.S. Top Album Sales rank | Album | Artist | Units |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1989 (Taylor’s Version) | Taylor Swift | 1.975 million |
| 2 | Midnights | Taylor Swift | 973,000 |
| 3 | Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) | Taylor Swift | 908,000 |
| 4 | Utopia | Travis Scott | 575,000 |
| 5 | 5-Star | Stray Kids | 526,000 |
| 6 | folklore | Taylor Swift | 466,000 |
| 7 | The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION | Tomorrow x Together | 444,000 |
| 8 | Lover | Taylor Swift | 425,000 |
| 9 | Guts | Olivia Rodrigo | 404,000 |
| 10 | ROCK-STAR | Stray Kids | 385,000 |
Other title-level 2023 figures from the same Luminate report include 326,000 U.S. album sales for Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, 199,000 for SZA’s SOS, 54,000 for Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album, and 53,000 for Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains. These are album-sales figures for the U.S. in 2023, not global totals and not streaming-equivalent units unless the source label specifically defines them otherwise.
The list also includes 466,000 sales for Taylor Swift’s folklore, 425,000 for Lover, and 575,000 for Travis Scott’s Utopia, matching their positions or title-level totals in the reported figures. The concentration of several high-selling titles by one artist is visible in the ranking, but the supplied statistics do not explain the drivers behind any individual release.
Album sales figures from 2022
The Luminate 2022 Year-End Report provides an earlier U.S. comparison point for selected albums. Taylor Swift’s Midnights posted 1.8 million album sales, while Harry Styles’ Harry’s House posted 757,000. Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR posted 354,000, and Encanto posted 226,000.
The same report recorded 70,000 U.S. album sales for Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, 64,000 for The Weeknd’s The Highlights, and 3,000 for Drake’s Certified Lover Boy. These values are title-level U.S. figures for 2022 and should not be compared with 2023 or 2024 numbers as though they describe identical release ages, chart positions, or market conditions.
For a compact year-and-title reference, the reported figures are:
| Measurement year | Album | Artist | U.S. album sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Midnights | Taylor Swift | 1.8 million |
| 2022 | Harry’s House | Harry Styles | 757,000 |
| 2022 | SOUR | Olivia Rodrigo | 354,000 |
| 2022 | Encanto | Various/film soundtrack | 226,000 |
| 2022 | Un Verano Sin Ti | Bad Bunny | 70,000 |
| 2022 | The Highlights | The Weeknd | 64,000 |
| 2022 | Certified Lover Boy | Drake | 3,000 |
The broader pattern across these years is clear in the available measurements: physical albums still generate billions of dollars in U.S. revenue, vinyl sells more units than CDs, downloads occupy a small and declining revenue position, and streaming dominates overall activity. The title-level numbers also show why album sales statistics need a stated year, geography, format, and measurement definition before different releases can be compared.