Is this the end of vinyl's comeback?
After more than 17 years of growth, the American 33 and 45 rpm market is showing its first signs of weakness.
If for three years, revenues from vinyl sales have exceeded those of CDs, the turnover of 33 laps has only grown by 4.2% in 2022 according to a report by the Luminate Institute.
A derisory increase compared to those of the two previous years, respectively of 46.2% and 51.4%.
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The overseas market is holding up in part thanks to Taylor Swift.
His album
Midnights
sold nearly a million copies in two months.
By overtaking
Abbey Road
by the Beatles (1969), Taylor Swift's last opus became the best-selling LP in the United States.
Without the Queen of Pop's record, the sector would have grown only 2% last year.
Price spike
This slowdown in growth can partly be explained by production difficulties.
Faced with rising demand, the vinyl sector is struggling to keep up.
The black cake industry has invested too little in its production capacities.
“The pressing plants have an aggregate pressing capacity of 160 million albums a year,”
a music industry executive tells Billboard
.
However, the demand of the world market is estimated between 320 and 400 million each year by the American magazine.
But what was supposed to be a mere production slowdown turned into a real traffic jam when California-based Apollo Masters, one of only two companies making the lacquer needed to create a record, burned down in February. 2020. As a result, the industry is struggling to keep up with growing consumer demand.
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Law of the market obliges, when the request exceeds the supply, the prices increase.
A phenomenon accentuated by the rise in the prices of raw materials and energy.
In the United States, prices for LPs increased by $2 to $20, depending on the benchmark.
Same observation on the French side.
In 2021, the three majors (Sony, Universal and Warner) increased the prices of part of their catalog.
For example,
Dure Limite
de Telephone has gone from 12.49 euros (excl. VAT) to 30 euros (excl. VAT), according to the Le Gredin union, a group of independent record stores.
What dissuade more than one consumer.
On the other hand, it is difficult to say whether the slowdown in growth has also affected the French market in 2022. The annual figures are not yet known.
In the first half, vinyl sales increased by 15% in value, according to the National Syndicate of Phonographic Publishing (SNEP).
As a reminder, sales of 33 laps had doubled in 2021.
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