[Harry Lavo]

"Dick Pierce" wrote in message
...
Harry Lavo wrote:
Sales of vinyl albums have been climbing steadily for several years,
tromping on the notion that the rebound was just a fad. Through late
November, more than 2.1 million vinyl records had been sold in 2009, an
increase of more than 35 percent in a year, according to Nielsen
Soundscan.
That total, though it represents less than 1 percent of all album sales,
including CDs and digital downloads, is the highest for vinyl records in
any
year since Nielsen began tracking them in 1991. "

The same source quotes 2008 CD album sales at 428 million units, and
song downloads at 1 billion units. So, attempting to compare 2008
apples to 2008 oranges, that's 428 million cd album sales vs 1.6
million vinyl record sales, making vinyl sales account for 0.37%
of the total album market.

Put it in a slightly different perspective, that's about 1.43 CDs for
every person in the United states, vs. one vinyl LP for every 188
persons.

Another perspective: assume $5 per CD and $10 per LP, that's 2.1G$
for CD, and 0.024G$ for LP.

How their data, as revealed, suggests that this is fueled by purchases
of the "iPod generation," is certainly a stretch. Where's the breakdown
by age, for example?

Further, there's no breakdown on how many of those sales constitute
new vs resale/preowned product (in either case, to be fair).

But the noise in the CD data is larger by a lot than the total LP
sales.

Dick, I'm not sure you know who Rachel is. She is the owner of J&R, and
works actively at the store....she gets this knowledge by seeing and talking
with the customers and with her department heads, who know their customers
well. J&R is a very well-run retailer. They know their customers.

[ excess quotation removed -- dsr ]