Study Shows Streaming Helping Vinyl Boom

Online streaming of music is helping the sales of vinyl to soar, per a new poll by British research company ICM. The polling results, which were shared with the BBC, shows half of vinyl consumers saying they’ve listened to an album online before making the decision to purchase a physical copy.

That explains the following, reported in January by Forbes: In 2015, sales of vinyl records in the United States grew by an astounding 30 percent — with Adele‘s 25 at the top of the sales list for the year. That figure brought the total number of records sold to just under 12 million, up from 9.19 million in 2014.

Interestingly, 48% of those polled in the British survey who bought vinyl in the last month say haven’t listened to their purchases, while 7% admit they don’t even own a turntable to play their records on. That means 52% of those polled played the vinyl they bought.

The largest percentage of vinyl buyers — over 30% of those polled — fall in the 25 to 34 age range, followed by 35 to 44 year olds (23%), 45 to 54 year olds (18%) and 18 to 24 year olds (about 16%).

So where do you fall on the vinyl fandom scale?

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