Physical music unit sales were up again in 2025 with the BPI reporting a second consecutive year of growth.
The 1.4% increase in sales year-on-year to 17.6 million was powered by vinyl as the format’s revival continued. While overall physical sales only returned to growth in 2024, vinyl has now been a booming market for 18 years.
Furthermore, vinyl sales are growing at an increasing rate – the market grew by 13.3% year-on-year to 7.6m units in 2025. That compares to 9.1% annual growth in 2024.
Music Week has reported on the younger audience being drawn to physical music and initiatives such as Record Store Day.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the continuing appeal of the [physical] album, particularly among a younger generation of fans who want as many touchpoints with their favourite artists as possible, and who also appreciate the authenticity of the LP in a world that will increasingly be shaped by AI and technology,” said BPI CEO Dr Jo Twist.
As we report in the current edition of Music Week, the vinyl revival has also seen the return of the 100k week one result – a chart phenomena that looked to have disappeared when streaming first took hold.
In 2025 there were six-figure week one results for Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl and Sam Fender’s People Watching.
It follows two six-figure openings in 2024 (Taylor Swift and Coldplay), two in 2023 (Take That, Taylor Swift), three in 2022 (Taylor Swift, Arctic Monkeys, Harry Styles), and four in 2021 (ABBA, Coldplay, Adele, Ed Sheeran). But there were none in 2020, one in 2019 (Ed Sheeran) and one in 2018 (Take That).
Swift’s 12th studio album opened with consumption in the UK of 423,444 units, beating her own week one result (270,091 units) for 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department.
The vinyl version of the album moved 125,592 units in a week, with Swift breaking records for vinyl and streaming.
While Swift stands apart, she represents a continuing trend for six-figure opening sales in the 2020s. Sam Fender’s Mercury Prize-winning People Watching also managed to join the 100,000 club this year with opening sales of 107,124.
Swift’s album was the top seller on vinyl in 2025, with Fender in second place.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that more artists will hit six-figure week one sales
Neil Gibbons
The Life Of A Showgirl sold over 147,000 units, the most vinyl LPs sold of a release in a calendar year since the Official Charts Company launched in 1994. It is the fourth successive year that Swift has achieved the top annual vinyl seller following Midnights in 2022, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) in 2023 and The Tortured Poets Department in 2024.
The 100k results for Swift and Fender marks a continuing trend for the six-figure opening over the last five years. Although the number of LPs moving that week one volume in any one year depends on superstar release schedules, there are signs that it is increasingly a realistic target for certain acts.
Twist said that sales results in 2025 show that “physical formats retain their importance in the market place and in the wider music ecosystem, where they enjoy a strong complementary relationship with streaming”.
“We can be optimistic that more artists can break through to approach similar levels of success through physical,” she added.
Key Production Group COO Neil Gibbons is confident about more artists passing 100,000 units in week one.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that more artists will hit six-figure week one sales again,” he said. “Demand for physical formats has strengthened and diversified. Fans are buying multiple formats across generations, and here at Key we’re seeing that beyond vinyl. Even CD pressings are up 15% year-on-year for us.”
It remains to be seen how many week one 100k results are delivered by labels this year. Big upcoming album releases by established acts likely to deliver significant physical volume in 2026 include BTS, Robbie Williams, Gorillaz, Raye and Charli XCX. If Lewis Capaldi releases a new album this year he would be a strong 100k week one contender – his last LP opened with 95,882 units in 2023.
“You can feel the shift on the factory floor,” added Gibbons. “Not long ago our team could walk right round on a vinyl pressing plant site visit; now whole areas are closed off and marked confidential as huge major releases move through. That fuller pipeline shows how the demand for physical music is driving big campaigns again and opening up real opportunities for artists moving towards that level.”
Subscribers can read our full chart trends story from the current edition of Music Week.
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