After having its downfall predicted for over a decade, it appears that demand for cassette tapes is actually increasing, with sales of the blank tapes increasing year-on-year.
TDK, the current market share leader for cassettes, has said it has sold one million of the blank tapes in the Q1 2009 already, blasting past expectations.
"We're pretty surprised actually because tape sales seem to be holding up very, very well," TDK spokesperson Craig Hill added. "We thought that they would tail off dramatically, year on year. In the last 12 months, we've seen a resurgence."
In the 90s, over 50 million blank tapes were sold every year, and by 2007 that number had dropped to just over 5 million.
Why demand is increasing however is the bigger question.
Says Andy Borthwick of aandcaudio.co.uk, "Cassettes for us over the last few years have actually increased in sales, for various reasons. There's a lot of people looking for them and they're not available on the High Street, so they're coming to specialist companies like ourselves."
Police also are big buyers of the tapes, as lawyers "don't trust digital technology for interviews" so they keep cassettes as the standard.
"We're pretty surprised actually because tape sales seem to be holding up very, very well," TDK spokesperson Craig Hill added. "We thought that they would tail off dramatically, year on year. In the last 12 months, we've seen a resurgence."
In the 90s, over 50 million blank tapes were sold every year, and by 2007 that number had dropped to just over 5 million.
Why demand is increasing however is the bigger question.
Says Andy Borthwick of aandcaudio.co.uk, "Cassettes for us over the last few years have actually increased in sales, for various reasons. There's a lot of people looking for them and they're not available on the High Street, so they're coming to specialist companies like ourselves."
Police also are big buyers of the tapes, as lawyers "don't trust digital technology for interviews" so they keep cassettes as the standard.
