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 GZ media, which presses records
ranging from global superstar Lady Gaga to
independent punk band Cock Sparrer saw sales
jump 11% to 4 billion crowns ($187 million) and
shipped 38 million LPs in 2020, said Chief
Executive Michal Sterba.
"It was a record year," he told Reuters on a
tour of the company's factory some 20 kms (12.4
miles) outside Prague where GZ media has pressed
albums since 1951. He expects revenue to soar to
4.7 billion crowns in 2021.
GZ Media's banner year follows a vinyl revival
over the past decade despite the popularity and
instant access of digital media and easy-to-use
streaming sites such as Apple Inc's iTunes and
Spotify.
The company also operates pressing plants in
North America.
"A lot of people started to buy their own audio
systems and started to buy vinyl
records...probably because they stayed home and
there were not as many other options such as
concerts, pubs and bars," said Sterba as
white-gloved workers transferred freshly-stamped
LPs into a box to cool before packaging.
While GZ Media sales dipped at the start of the
lockdown early last year, demand soared in the
second half, he added.
"Right now vinyl records are moving from niche
markets of music collectors, music lovers and
audiophiles to...a wider consumer base
representing a young generation who found their
way to vinyl," Sterba said.
In the United States -- the world's biggest
vinyl market -- 27.5 million LPs were sold in
2020, up 46% from 2019, according to
German-based market and consumer data company
Statista.
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 Music sales data firm MRC said
51 albums sold at least 50,000 copies in the
United States – up from just 23 in 2019 with the
year's top-selling LP Harry Styles’ 'Fine Line'
selling 232,000 copies.
"Buying vinyl is like buying antiquities," said
Petr Rakosnik, owner of a Prague music store.
"Vinyl has an amazing sound."
GZ Media also produces CDs, DVDs and packaging
but vinyl drives about 65% of the group's
revenue, Sterba said at the factory employing
1,800 people.
A richer sound, cover art and the ability to
cradle a vinyl record contribute to the growing
emotional appeal for LPs, added local DJ Jiri
Holubec.
"When I take a record by Charlie Parker from the
fifties, I can see and feel his music physically
stamped in there," he said.
($1 = 21.4120 Czech crowns)
(Additional reporting by Kristyna Jandova,
Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
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