The RIAA 2026 Mid-Year Revenue Report has put the CD sales comeback on the record books: compact discs generated $171.1 million in the first half of 2026, up 58.6% from roughly $107.9 million in the same period a year earlier, on 17.5 million units sold.
That unit count is up 45.7% year-over-year, from approximately 12 million in the first half of 2025. Both figures come against a backdrop of steady decline: full-year 2025 CD revenue had fallen 7.8%, from $338.9 million in 2024 to $312.4 million, while units dropped 11.6%, from 33.3 million to 29.5 million.
CD Sales Comeback in Context: From Decline to Double-Digit Growth
The scale of the reversal needs framing. The RIAA 2025 Mid-Year Revenue Report showed CDs generating $108.1 million on 11.7 million units in the first half of 2025, down 22% in both revenue and units from the same period in 2024. The format was not gently fading; it was falling off a cliff. The first-half 2026 numbers represent a clean break from that trajectory.
A caveat on the revenue comparisons is worth stating plainly. The RIAA switched from estimated retail value to wholesale value starting with its mid-year 2025 report, a change Billboard explains was designed to align with global reporting standards, including the IFPI’s global music report. That shift means 2024 and 2025 revenue figures are not directly comparable. Unit sales, unaffected by the accounting change, tell the same story regardless: CDs were still declining before this year’s rebound.
A separate count from data firm Luminate adds texture, and a small wrinkle. Billboard’s coverage of the mid-year findings notes that Luminate’s own mid-year 2026 report found CD unit sales rose 16% to 16.3 million units in the first half of the year. The RIAA’s figure for the same period is 17.5 million. Both methodologies agree on the direction; they disagree on the magnitude. The RIAA number is the industry body’s official count.
Physical Media’s Broader Revival, and What It Says About Streaming
CDs are not carrying this revival alone. Total physical media revenue in the first half of 2026 jumped 25.9% to $731.5 million, driven by both the CD surge and a 17.7% increase in vinyl revenue. Vinyl brought in $543.8 million on 26.5 million units, up from $461.9 million on 22.0 million units in the first half of 2025, according to the RIAA report.
Vinyl’s growth streak now spans 19 consecutive years, per the RIAA 2025 Year-End Revenue Report. That document also confirmed that vinyl crossed $1 billion in annual revenue for 2025, the first time it has done so since 1983.
It is worth noting that vinyl outsold CDs by units as far back as 2022, the first time that had happened since 1987, according to Business Insider reporting on RIAA data. The CD sales comeback has not closed that gap; vinyl’s unit lead through the first half of 2026 remained substantial.
None of this has dented streaming’s structural dominance. The RIAA’s mid-year report shows streaming generated $4.9 billion in the first half of 2026, up 4.7% year-over-year, accounting for 82% of total U.S. recorded music revenue. Paid subscriptions reached 111.1 million accounts, up from 105.3 million a year earlier. Overall U.S. recorded music revenues hit $6 billion for the period, up 6.9% from the first half of 2025.
Physical media’s growth, in other words, is happening inside a market that streaming still controls absolutely. The CD sales comeback is a meaningful shift within a niche, not a challenge to the dominant order.
The cultural engine behind it is reasonably well understood. Gen Z’s appetite for what are being called dumbphones, film cameras, typewriters, and physical media reflects a desire for technology that stays where you put it. Retail and thrift-store CD sales, family hand-me-downs from Gen X parents, and purchases through vintage resellers such as eBay go entirely uncounted in the RIAA’s figures, which cover only new, commercially distributed units. The real numbers are almost certainly larger.
The question for the rest of 2026 is whether the first-half surge holds as a structural shift or fades once the novelty fades. Full-year 2025 ended in decline. Full-year 2026 will need two strong halves to mark a genuine turning point, and the second half’s numbers are the ones to watch.
