WH Smith announces that vinyl is back in stores for the first time in three decades

WH Smith originally started stocking vinyl albums in the 1950s, at the dawn of rock music’s boom in Britain, with album sales a core component of the retailer’s strategy. However, with the rise of the CD in the 1990s, vinyl sales declined and they were withdrawn from stores.

Now British consumers can buy vinyl from WH Smith for the first time in thirty years. The retailer has announced that 80 of its stores across the country will now sell vinyl albums.

This comes as the vinyl boom continues in Britain, an unlikely but very welcome renaissance at the height of the streaming era. The BPI confirmed this last year 2023 marked the 16th consecutive year of vinyl sales growth in Britainwith the fastest year-on-year growth we’ve seen for vinyl this decade.

According to BPI analysis of data from the official charts: vinyl sales have increased four times as fast as in 2022, with an increase of 11.7% to 5.9 million units (until week 51). In 2022, vinyl sales increased 2.9% year over year.

Last year, Taylor Swift earned the biggest vinyl album of 2023 with 1989 (Taylor’s Version), while being the biggest vinyl release from a British act The Rolling Stones‘S Hackney diamondsthe first release of original material since 2005 and their first album since the death of drummer Charlie Watts.

As for 2024, Taylor dominates UK vinyl sales again – The Tortured Poets Department is the best-selling vinyl album of the year so farwhile the biggest UK vinyl album of the year so far is from Oasis and their 30th anniversary reissue of Absolute, Maybe. Liam Gallagher also claims the biggest vinyl single of the year so far, with Just Another Rainbow featuring John Squire.

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