(Photo: Bebeto Matthews, AP)
Who buys CDs anymore? Electronics retailer Best Buy is betting: very few people.
The nation’s largest consumer electronics retailer will no longer be selling CDs.
According to Billboard, Best Buy told suppliers that it will pull CDs on July 1.
“At one point, Best Buy was the most powerful music merchandiser in the U.S., but nowadays it’s a shadow of its former self, with a reduced and shoddy offering of CDs,” Billboard reported. “Sources suggest that the company’s CD business is nowadays only generating about $40 million annually.”
People are still listening to music, but with digital subscriptions like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music on top of digital sales, the internet is the way of the future.
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According to the International Federation of Phonographic Industry, streaming revenues have surged by more than 60% and more than 100 million users have paid streaming subscriptions globally.
In 2016, only 34 % of the recording industry’s global revenues came from physical format sales. Half of the revenue came from digital sales.
On Friday, Best Buy announced that it would pay one-time bonuses of $1,000 to full-time workers and $500 to part-time employees.
The company said the bonuses were due to the federal tax overhaul.
by Sarah Brookbank, The Cincinnati Enquirer
Source: USA Today, February 2018
