Having recently submitted data to Billboard, online music auction place Discogs has reported 2.5 million record sales, 550,000 CDs and about 50,000 cassettes in 2015 alone.
With records sales in the US at a 26 year high, the last time figures were this high was 1989 (before the compact disc entered the market in ’90).
The site started life as a platform for then Intel-programmer Kevin Lewandowski to auction off his record collection of underground electronic music. The first ever transaction was a copy of the chaotic SP-23 – This is Trance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zGnU7ecwT4
Discogs is now a 40 person operation, headquartered in Portland, with offices in the Netherlands. The site is due to release a mobile app next year.