US CD revenue rose 58.6% in the first half of 2026, but that one-year figure starts at the bottom of a steep 2025 fall. Compared with the first half of 2024, revenue was up about 23%, while unit sales were up 16.7%. The rebound is real. The two-year view makes it less sudden than the headline number suggests, based on the Recording Industry Association of America's latest table.
Another change is hiding between the unit and revenue columns. The RIAA counted 17.5 million CD albums and $171.1 million in wholesale revenue for the six months, up from a restated 12 million units and $107.9 million a year earlier. Divide those rounded totals and average wholesale revenue moved from roughly $8.99 to $9.78 per disc, an increase of about 8.7%. More discs were sold, and each reported unit produced more wholesale revenue on average. The RIAA report does not explain which part came from pricing, product mix, returns, or direct-market sales.
The weak 2025 base matters
The original 2025 midyear report recorded 15 million CDs and $139.1 million in revenue for the first half of 2024. It put the next year's result at 11.7 million units and $108.1 million, declines of 22% and 22.3%. The new 2026 table slightly revises that comparison year to 12 million units and $107.9 million. Both reports note that some figures are adjusted because of rounding, and the latest table is the source of the published 45.7% unit gain and 58.6% revenue gain. The 2025 report preserves the earlier figures.
Using 2024 as the base changes the scale. Unit sales moved from 15 million to 17.5 million over two years, a gain of 2.5 million or 16.7%. Revenue rose from $139.1 million to $171.1 million, a $32 million increase or about 23%. Average wholesale revenue per unit went from about $9.27 in 2024 to $9.78 in 2026, a rise of roughly 5.4%. Those calculations use the rounded wholesale values in the two RIAA tables, so they should not be read as retail price measurements.
A sharp dip followed by a sharper percentage rebound can produce a large annual growth rate even when the longer change is moderate. The 2026 result has passed the 2024 level in units and revenue, which rules out describing it as a simple return to the previous number. It also does not support a claim that demand rose 58.6%; that percentage measures dollars, while reported units rose 45.7%. The Verge's report on the release led with both figures and noted the prior year's contraction.
Wholesale revenue is not a shelf price
The RIAA labels its table "United States Wholesale Dollar Value" and says the amounts are net after returns. Its CD category covers full-length compact disc albums, including direct and special-market sales. CD singles, DVDs, Blu-ray music videos, cassettes, MiniDiscs, SACDs, and DVD-Audio sit in "Other Physical." That definition matters because the 17.5 million count is narrower than every optical disc or CD-shaped item sold during the period. The association publishes those definitions with the release.
Average wholesale revenue per unit is therefore a blended result. A $9.78 average cannot tell a buyer what a typical album cost at a shop, and it cannot identify a list-price increase. The aggregate could move when the mix of releases, sales channels, or returned stock changes. The table supplies no title-level prices or channel breakdown for CDs. It supports the narrower conclusion that revenue grew faster than units within the RIAA's defined CD album category.
Vinyl moved in the opposite direction on this measure. Units rose 20.9%, from 22 million to 26.5 million, while revenue increased 17.7%, from $461.9 million to $543.8 million. The rounded figures imply average wholesale revenue of about $21.00 per record in 2025 and $20.52 in 2026, a decline of roughly 2.3%. CD revenue per unit rose as vinyl revenue per unit eased, even though both formats sold more copies, according to the same physical-format table.
The smaller "Other Physical" category shows why unit and revenue percentages need to be kept separate. Its unit count climbed 73.4% to 1.6 million, while revenue grew 44.9% to $16.5 million. The category includes several formats with very different products and prices, and its unit totals are rounded to one decimal place in millions. The RIAA data establishes the divergence, while the broad category definition limits any stronger explanation.
Physical formats grew inside a streaming market
All physical music revenue reached $731.5 million, up 25.9% from $581.2 million. That was about 12.2% of total recorded music revenue, which rose 6.9% to $5.97 billion. Streaming generated $4.89 billion, or roughly 81.9% of the total. Physical media had the faster growth rate, while streaming remained about 6.7 times larger by revenue in the 2026 midyear report.
CDs alone accounted for about 2.9% of total revenue. Vinyl brought in more than three times as much at $543.8 million. Yet CD album revenue also exceeded the $121 million generated by all permanent downloads, a category that includes singles, albums, ringtones, and other digital products. Download revenue fell 12.7% year over year as CD revenue climbed, extending the separation between physical ownership and downloaded-file sales visible in the RIAA's format totals.
Within streaming, premium subscription accounts increased 5.5% to an average of 111.1 million. Premium subscription revenue rose 7.8% to $3.11 billion, while non-premium paid subscription revenue fell 9% to $239.1 million. Free streaming revenue grew 3.7%, and the report's "Other Streaming" line declined 2.1%. The association combines the two paid tiers when it says paid subscriptions produced $3.4 billion, up 6.4%, in its announcement.
Those figures describe revenue sources, not listening time. A person can pay for streaming and buy an album, so the table cannot divide listeners into physical and digital camps. It also cannot show whether a CD was played, displayed, given away, or left sealed. The RIAA counts wholesale units and dollars for the United States; it does not publish buyer ages or household behavior in this revenue report.
Buyer behavior remains the missing piece
A separate estimate shows how measurement can differ. The Verge cited Luminate research that counted 16.3 million CD units in the first half of 2026, 1.2 million fewer than the RIAA figure. It also reported Luminate's view that collector behavior was important among millennial buyers and that only about half of buyers in its research owned a CD player. Those are Luminate findings relayed by The Verge, rather than demographic conclusions contained in the RIAA table.
The difference between 16.3 million and 17.5 million is a warning against treating a single count as a census of every purchase. Neither article provides enough methodological detail to reconcile the gap. The RIAA's scope is clear about full-length albums, direct sales, and special markets; The Verge presents Luminate as a separate research estimate. The safest claim supported by both is direction, since each found a substantial rise in CD units during the first half of 2026. The RIAA source supplies the category boundary.
The full-year 2026 report will reveal whether the rebound held through the second half and whether average wholesale revenue per disc stayed near $9.78. A useful comparison will keep the 2024 baseline in view and check for revisions to 2026's rounded unit count. Until then, the figures show that CDs recovered beyond their 2024 midyear level and revenue grew faster than unit sales. That recovery still sits inside a market where streaming supplies roughly 82% of revenue. Those are the numbers to test against the next RIAA table.