Long before Taylor Swift began moving millions of new vinyl records, the seed of a different vinyl revolution was lurking in storage boxes and milk crates in millions of American basements and garages: the used marketplace.
The vinyl record comeback has been a central story of the music business for more than 10 years. Sales of new vinyl records rebounded from a few hundred thousand units in 2006 to 48 million in 2025, totaling $1 billion in US revenue, according to the RIAA. Credit nostalgia, yearning for an analog experience in a digital world and more than a few releases from the likes of Swift, BTS and Harry Styles that target superfans.
New vinyl gets most of the attention, as dollars for used sales don’t flow to the labels, publishers and artists. However, retailers benefit, and used vinyl also speaks to the needs of the fan. Still, the used market is difficult to measure through traditional means. At MusicWatch, tracking the buying habits of used vinyl shoppers has been an essential part of our Annual Music Study in the U.S. for 20 years. Some of the statistics from the 2025 study are quite startling:
- Since 2016, used vinyl sales have increased by 171 percent. While that’s not as big an increase as for new vinyl sales — which rose 269 percent over the same 10-year period — that level of growth is nothing to sneeze at.
- Used vinyl has been outselling CDs in the U.S. for several years. MusicWatch estimates that 42 million used vinyl records were sold in the U.S. in 2025, while Luminate reported 34 million CD sales last year.
- Could used vinyl be a half-billion-dollar market? It’s hard to pinpoint, as pricing for used vinyl is difficult to get at. While Discogs reports that “mint” used product averages around $36, there’s a lot that isn’t mint, and a significant portion is sold at flea markets, auctions and antique shops for much less. Based on historical price estimates MusicWatch provided to the record labels and conversations with vinyl experts, we assigned a value of $12 for the average used record. At that price, revenues for the used market in the U.S. alone would translate to half a billion dollars.
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- In 2025, 57 percent of new vinyl buyers also purchased used vinyl. Meanwhile, nearly 90 percent of used buyers purchased a new record. In other words, the Record Store Day buyer shopping for that Bruno Mars compilation at Newbury Comics during RSD2026 is quite likely to walk out with a used record as well.
- It’s not just Boomers. One-third of used vinyl buyers are in the Gen Z age group, 27 percent are Millennials and 30 percent are Gen Xers. The major difference is that the average Gen X buyer purchases three times as many used albums as the average Gen Z buyer. Boomers, meanwhile, are more likely to buy used and not new (sorry, Taylor).
- Rock is by far the most popular genre among used vinyl buyers. This includes classic rock, alternative, metal and other variants. In fact, interest in rock among used vinyl buyers outranks hip-hop/R&B by nearly two to one.
In light of these statistics, it’s clear that used vinyl shouldn’t be ignored as a key driver of the vinyl revolution. Even if you’re a stakeholder who doesn’t benefit directly from used sales, they help to support retailers, not to mention the fans who sell them. And, as noted above, used vinyl sales don’t cannibalize the market for new product. In fact, the data suggests quite the contrary: Exploring new artists or genres via used product might lead to more new physical music sales, and even increased streams, ticket and merch sales. In other words, the used vinyl market is a critical cog in a healthy music ecosystem.
Russ Crupnick is Managing Partner at MusicWatch, a research and insights firm specializing in music and entertainment. Russ provides industry analysis and consumer entertainment trends to record labels, distributors, technology companies and trade associations.
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