UK vinyl market sees 70 per cent increase in 2012

The value of the vinyl album market increased by nearly 70 per cent in 2012, according to figures from the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA).

As reported by the BBC, sales of albums on the format have been increasing over the five years with the value of the market increasing from £3.4m million in 2011 to £5.7 million in 2012. That figure is up from £1.1 million in 2008.

However, sales of vinyl singles have decreased, with the market worth £0.9 million in both 2012 and 2011, down from £2.2 million in 2008.

“The reason the growth is notable is that, first of all, a lot of people had written off vinyl for dead and, secondly, it compares very favourably with the declines suffered by CD,” Kim Bayley, director general of the ERA said.

Earlier this month, The xx’s Coexist was named the best-selling vinyl album in the UK in 2012 behind the reissue of David Bowie’s The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars and Jack White’s solo debut Blunderbuss in third place.

Overall vinyl sales grew for the fifth successive year throughout 2012, with a total of 389,000 LPs sold, according to figures from the Official Charts Company and the BPI. That marks an increase of 15.3 per cent over 2011’s sales of 337,000.