Almost a third of UK consumers aged 11 to 25 spend up to £5 a month on music downloads, according to a survey from Q Research published this week.

The poll found that 85 per cent of respondents already own an MP3 player, and that the Apple iPod is by far the most popular device.

While 45 per cent of respondents spend nothing on music, almost a third spend up to £5 a month and three per cent spend £25 or more a month.

The youngest respondents in the survey were the heaviest users of free downloads, with almost half taking advantage of these services.

However, 43 per cent of under 16s are paying up to £10 a month, and nine per cent pay as much as £10 to £25 a month.

But it is the 20-24 year olds who are the biggest spenders. Two thirds of this category spend up to £10 a month on downloads, and 16 per cent spend from £10 to £20 a month.

The findings also indicate that this audience is very aware of the cost of using their mobile phones for music. Only three per cent have downloaded tracks directly to their mobile from the internet because of the high cost of doing so.

Liz Nelson, chairman of Q Research, said: "This survey shows that, while there is already a very buoyant market for paying for MP3 files from the internet among young people, they are very aware of the cost of downloading files to their phones.

"This finding is underlined by other projects we have done, where we have discovered opposition among young people to watching video or receiving video ads to their mobiles because of the cost."