In a recent New York Times article about leading electric guitar maker, Fender, we found the size of the retail sales figure for musical instruments in the United States. But, it made us think, what about musical instrument manufacturing in the United States? It turns out that U.S. musical instrument manufacturers are weathering the 2007–2009 recession and slow recovery since reasonably well.

The graph presents data from the U.S. Census Bureau on musical instrument manufacturer product shipments annually from 1997 through 2010. The value of U.S. made musical instruments grew, if slightly, over this period. When compared with the value of musical instrument imports, we look at a different time period, 2000 to 2010. Over the first decade of the new century, the value of U.S. made musical instruments fell by 5.5% while the value of musical instrument imports fell 7.0%.

Today’s market size is the value of all musical instrument sales in the United States in 2011. Please note that the figures in the graphic are not retail sales, rather values based on wholesale values.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 2011
Market size: $6.5 billion
Source: Janet Morrissey, “Aiming To Stay Plugged In,” September 30, 2012, The New York Times, page B1. The graphic was produced with data from the “Annual Survey of Manufactures: General Statistics: Statistics for Industry Groups and Industries: 2010 and 2009,” and earlier “Annual Survey of Manufacturer” reports on the industry, NAICS 339992 Musical Instrument Manufacturing. The Census Bureau data are available online through their American FactFinder website, here.
Original source: Music Trades
Posted on October 9, 2012