Tokyo, Jun 29 (IANS): Japanese tech giant Sony announced on Thursday it will resume vinyl production after suspending it in 1989.

Sony Music Entertainment, the musical branch of the Tokyo-based conglomerate, has decided to resume vinyl production this year at its two plants in Japan, a company official told Efe news but did not disclose the expected volume of production.

Sony stopped the domestic manufacture of these discs in 1989 due to the monopolisation of the music market by CDs, the other digital physical format that Sony co-developed and began distributing in 1982.

Sony seeks to re-adapt the current revival of the vinyl thanks to the sales of second-hand albums and to the growing number of new releases in the old analogue support.

In addition, Sony Music has installed a new recording studio in Tokyo specially designed to enable the production of masters from which copies will be made in vinyl to match the quality of this format better, according to the spokesperson.

According to data from the Japanese music industry, vinyl sales in Japan hit 800,000 units in 2016, eight times more than in 2010.

The trend has also been observed in other countries like the UK where last year vinyl sales surpassed the digital format or in the US where 17.2 million discs were sold in 2016.