Digital streaming’s dominated the music industry for the last few years as the go-to platform of choice for most music consumers thanks to its relative ease of use and a wide variety of available platforms due to all of the major tech giants who have stepped into the music industry lately. That said, vinyl has quietly been making a resurgence of its own, to the tune of $1 billion no less, which has not gone unnoticed by SME (SONY) Japan.
The Japanese music industry is an interesting market of its own where physical product reigns supreme, so it’s not surprising to see SONY test run their program there. According to the IFPI, physical sales account for 73% of the total recorded music industry – the global leader. Most of that is currently attributed to CDs but it looks like they’ll soon be purchasing a lot of vinyl again with SONY Japan stating that they’ll be starting to print vinyl in-house again – something they haven’t done since 1989. All production will take place in their factory with the aim of having the records ready to go by March 2018.
Vinyl’s come back has largely been attributed to a combination of ‘nostalgia’ from an older-music listening generation and interest from a younger generation looking for a ‘retro’ tangible music product.