David Guetta is the most downloaded dance artist in history

According to trends seen on Nokia's Ovi Music Store, 2010 is tipped to be the summer of dance as festival season gets into full swing and dance music downloads soar. The genre has now jumped two places up to the sixth most downloaded music category online – behind pop, rock and hip hop.

According to Ovi, Russia is currently the biggest downloader of dance music, followed by Austria, Netherlands, UK, Switzerland, South Africa, Finland, Italy and Mexico.

Driving this rapid rise is French DJ turned global superstar David Guetta. The research, conducted by Nokia across 36 countries, revealed that Guetta – famous for his chart-topping dance songs When Love Takes Over (featuring Kelly Rowland) and Sexy Bitch (featuring Akon) – currently dominates half (50 per cent)of the top ten most downloaded dance tracks on Ovi Music. This makes David Guetta the most downloaded dance artist of all time on Ovi Music, outselling the next four most popular dance artists combined.

TOP TEN DANCE MUSIC ACTS OF ALL TIME** (based on Ovi Music downloads)

Artist
1. David Guetta
2. Cascada
3. La Roux
4. Ministry of Sound
5. Basshunter
6. Tiësto
7. Scooter
8. The Chemical Brothers
9. Calvin Harris
10. Faithless

In terms of total downloads on Ovi, dance music is currently the sixth most popular genre, up from eighth place the same time last year – ahead of Indie and Latin music.

"This trends snapshot reveals a growing interest in dance music across the world which has traditionally been a niche genre online" said Ovi Musicologist, Geoff Roberts.

"Artists such as David Guetta are helping bring dance music to the masses, spiking an increase in downloads over the past year. This is only going to increase as we get deeper into festival season – last year dance music downloads peaked between May and September, and this trend looks like it is set to continue this year."

GLOBAL POPULARITY OF DANCE MUSIC (based on total Ovi Music downloads)