Broadening their musical horizons

Female fans are driving up music sales thanks to technology which allows them to buy songs without having to visit High Fidelity-style record shops.

Sophie Watson Smyth, marketing manager at Q and Mojo, suggested that technology had changed the way in which women approach music.

"The freedom afforded by new technology means that women are now confidently downloading music at home and broadening their musical horizons in private," she said.

Over three-quarters of women in the UK aged 16 to 45 now own an MP3 player or an MP3 phone, according to research by Emap, and nearly two million cannot imagine life without the gadget.

The research found that the typical female user is 16 to 24 years old, listens to between one and two hours of music a day, and spends approximately £10 a month on music downloads.

Women also listen to more podcasts per day than men, at 17 per cent compared to nine per cent of men.

Seventy per cent of the female respondents indicated that their taste in music has broadened because of new technologies, while 80 per cent have rediscovered old artists, albums and songs.

Just under two-thirds of women now spend more time on the internet looking for new music, and a third spend more money on music than they used to.