Britain biggest Bollywood music downloader abroad

New Delhi, May 26 (IANS) Britain has become the top country to download Bollywood music abroad while A.R. Rahman has been declared the most downloaded Indian artist, according to a new research.

Bollywood tracks have found particular favour with listeners in Britain, where over one in four tracks downloaded from Nokia's Ovi Music Store is a Bollywood song.

Following suit are Singaporeans at the second spot, who are responsible for nearly a third (31 percent) of all Indian music downloads outside India. While Finland and Germany occupy the third and fourth slots respectively, Australian music fans account for a fifth of the global total.

The UAE, South Africa, Switzerland, Mexico and Russia round off the top 10 respectively.

In India, Bollywood songs represent over half of all downloaded tracks (54 percent), with western pop and ghazal next in line.

Among Indian artists, Oscar-award winning music composer A.R. Rahman leads the way as the world's most downloaded Indian artist.

He is followed in popularity by playback singer Sonu Nigam, JoJo, Himesh Reshammiya and Shaan.

Udit Narayan, Asha Bhosle, Kishore Kumar and Salim-Sulaiman occupy the rest of the spots in that order.

The research was conducted by Nokia Ovi Music based on the number of downloaded songs across 35 countries via Ovi Music until mid-March 2010.