CD sales in the US reached 16.3 million in the first half of 2026, up 16% from the same period a year earlier, according to Luminate's 2026 midyear report (The Verge). That is a sharp turnaround for a format that had been shrinking throughout the streaming era.

K-pop played a role, but it is not the whole story. Even if you set aside K-pop releases, CD sales still rose 6.7%. Luminate pointed to several reasons: people building collections, affordable prices, big album releases like BTS' ARIRANG, and a packed K-pop release schedule.

Here is the most surprising finding in the report: about half of Gen Z and Millennial CD buyers do not own a CD player. Luminate described this as a sign that the CD has become less of a way to listen to music and more of an affordable collectible. People are buying the discs to own, display, and trade, not to play them.

Overall US sales of physical music, including vinyl, CDs, and cassettes, rose 7.8% year-over-year in the first half of 2026 (The Verge). Total physical album sales reached 38.2 million, up from 35.5 million in the first half of 2025 (Billboard).

Vinyl records were still the biggest seller by volume, with 21.8 million units sold in the first half of 2026. Luminate's Denise Schenasi provided the vinyl and cassette figures directly to The Verge. Vinyl sales grew 2.4% year-over-year (Billboard), slower than CDs but still growing, even though many people had expected the vinyl revival to fade by now.

Cassette sales reached about 205,000 units, a small but lasting part of the physical music market.

The fact that CD sales are growing faster than vinyl is worth noting. Vinyl has been the success story in physical music for the past decade. Its 2.4% growth is positive but small compared to the 16% jump for CDs. Price is part of the reason. CDs cost less to make and to buy than vinyl, which has gotten more expensive due to production slowdowns and premium editions. For younger buyers spending money on physical music as a collectible rather than something to listen to, the lower price of a CD is a real advantage.

The K-pop effect is genuine, but the 6.7% growth without it suggests a wider shift in how US buyers think about CDs. The pattern mirrors what happened with vinyl: a format that people once used for listening becomes valued again as a physical object. The CD is on the same path vinyl already took, just at a lower price and with a different group of buyers getting started.

The data does not yet tell us whether this CD surge will last. Vinyl's comeback has stuck around, helped by events like Record Store Day, better pressing quality, and artists selling vinyl as merchandise. Whether CDs can build that same kind of culture and routine around them, or whether the current jump is mainly tied to specific album release schedules and K-pop fan spending, is something the second half of 2026 will start to answer.

The broader picture for the music industry is that physical media keeps growing even as streaming dominates. Streaming still brings in the most money and gets the most plays. But physical formats have found a steady, growing role as collectibles, merchandise, and cultural items, sitting alongside streaming rather than replacing it.