Vinyl sales in the US just had their biggest week in history

Last week, the United States sold the most amount of vinyl records in history in a single week.

The pre-Christmas rush saw nearly 2 million LPs sold across the country.

As Billboard reports, 1.842 million vinyl LPs were purchased in the US in the week leading up to Christmas, which ended on December 24.

It broke the record set just one week before (December 10-17), where 1.445 million were sold. The new record is the biggest weekly sales of vinyl in the country since records began in 1991.

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Record stores are facing uncertainty over the future of Brexit (Picture: Burak Cingi/Redferns)

Meanwhile in the UK, sales of vinyl look set to hit a new three-decade high as fans appear to be using their time in lockdown to top up their record collections.

While music fans are unable to attend live gigs due to the coronavirus pandemic, sales of vinyl have gone up almost 10% this year, which puts it on track to break the £100 million mark by the end of 2020, making for the best year since 1990.

Sales by volume are also set to beat last year’s 4.3 million figure, even as the physical music market took a dip by almost half in March when the first nationwide lockdown forced high street retailers to close. The first signs of this year’s soaring vinyl sales came when record stores re-opened in June for the first time since lockdown.

This year also saw vinyl outsell CDs for the first time since the 1980s. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), vinyl contributed a staggering $232 million (£181 million) to total physical sales of $376 million (£278 million) in the first half of 2020.

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