Vinyl records sales generate more money than free services by YouTube, Spotify and Vevo combined and it is by a landslide. A new report found that vinyl sales make up one third of total music sales.

Courtesy of mashable.com

Vinyl record sales have earned $222 million dollars in the first half of this year. Compared to last year, the sales are up 52 percent. Ad-based sites generated only $163 million dollars in just the first 6 months of 2015. Even though it has brought in more money than ever before and it is quite a jump from the first half of 2014 when these sites generated $128 million dollars; it is still nothing compared to what vinyl record sales have done.

Not only are vinyl sales up, but also CD sales happen to be down. There is no other music format that is surging as much as vinyl records. Even digital music outside of streaming doesn’t compare. So why is this?

Well, when actually purchasing physical music, buyers like large images and collections. Plus, a lot of records come with a free digital download and exclusive content. With vinyl records soaring, more artists are releasing colored records and special singles on vinyl records.

Of course paid streaming services brings in the most money. Not many users use the ad-based services, but there happens to be a lot of paid subscribers. In the first half of this year, paid streaming services generated over a billion dollars already. All sales of physical recordings have only brought in $748 million dollars.

Paid streaming services aren’t going anywhere, but either are vinyl records. They both will continue to dominate the music scene. We just may not be seeing CDs for much longer.