New Report Shows Vinyl Sales Increase For Tenth Consecutive Year

The 2015 Nielsen year-end report has been released and figures have revealed that growth for vinyl sales has increased for a tenth straight year, with nearly 12 million units sold this past year in the US.

The figures are well up on 2014 vinyl sales, beating it by 2.8 million units, while independent music stores have proven to be the biggest driver of vinyl LP's, with over 45% of sales coming from these particular outlets.

Rock music is still the most popular genre for vinyl LP's with over 68% of vinyl sales coming from rock artists. Thanks to hugely successful albums from Adele and Taylor Swift in 25 and 1989 respectively, pop sales more than doubled its share of vinyls from 2.8% in 2014 to 5.7% in 2015.

Meanwhile, on-demand streaming has predictably increased significantly in 2015, up 92.8% from 2014.

317 billion songs were streamed on-demand last year and although album sales were down by 6% in 2015, the decline was notably less than the 11% decline in 2014.

Elsewhere, if it even needed another list to top, Adele's latest album crushed the first week Nielsen SoundScan record for weekly album sales with over 3.377 million units, breaking the record previously held by former US boy band NSync's 2000 record No Strings Attached.

"With a record setting 3.38 million copies sold in the first week, and more than 7.4 million in its first six weeks, the unprecedented sales of Adele’s 25 is the sales story of the year, if not the decade," Senior Vice President of Industry Insights David Bakula said. 

"While music fans continued to drive dramatic growth in on-demand streaming music, with volume up 93% over 2014, it’s clear that the album is still a viable format for music fans."

The statistics come just a day after the album was named as Australia's highest selling album in 2015.

For a look at the full 2015 Nielsen year-end report, click here.