873B STREAMS AND
OTHER 2020 STATS

Total recorded-music activity for 2020 was up 11.6% over 2019, owing largely to a 17% spike in streams. Total streams were 873 billion; total album equivalents hit 757m.

Vinyl album sales were up a whopping 46.2%. In fact, proceeds generated by vinyl beat those generated by CDs for the first time since the Berlin Wall came down (1989, for those of you who are not history buffs). Vinyl sales—28m units—represented 41% of all physical albums sold. CDs dipped 26% to 40m.

The downside was where you'd expect it: in the downloads. Digital album sales were off 12.5% at 34m, and the 234m digital track sales represented a 22.3% drop.

Moreover, total album sales in all formats were down 9.2% to 102m.

Could 2021 be the year we see a trillion tracks streamed?