Why are CD sales suddenly growing again?

CD sales seem to be continuing higherthanks to fans who realized it was an affordable way to support their favorite artists. according to New report From research firm Luminate, 16.3 million CDs were sold in the first half of 2026 in the United States, an increase of 16 percent year over year. Luminate says the growth in CD sales was driven by “building collections, accessibility, mega-hit albums like BTS’s ARIRANG, and a strong schedule of K-pop releases.”

Even if you remove K-pop sales from the data, CD sales are still up in the United States, where they increased by 6.7 percent. And it seems some people aren’t buying CDs to listen to, as the Luminate report notes that “nearly” half of Gen Z and Millennial buyers who buy CDs don’t own a CD player.

The data indicates that “CD has been remastered from a functional audio format to an affordable collectible disc,” Luminet says. “This behavior underscores that for younger generations, purchasing physical music is as much about aesthetic ownership and direct financial support of the artist as it is about listening to the music on the product itself.”

Sales of physical albums — vinyl, CDs and cassettes — were also up overall, increasing 7.8 percent year over year. Vinyl sales were 21.8 million units and cassette sales were about 205,000 units, says Dennis Schinasi of Luminate. Edge. High vinyl sales continue a trend of the CD format outselling CD that has been ongoing since 2008 A few Years now.