'Indians among most music-mad in Asia'

India, Indonesia and the Philippines have Asia's most music-mad youngsters, a survey found on Thursday, while young people in Hong Kong and Singapore prefer the sound of silence.

In the study by entertainment channel MTV to find the region's most avid pop music fans, 71 per cent of young Indians, 70 percent of Indonesians and 64 per cent of Filipinos described themselves as passionate about music.

MTV vice president for research and planning Ian Stewart said as well as being the most passionate about music, Indians and Indonesians had the highest rate of people watching music videos on TV on a regular basis.

"In countries such as India and Indonesia, where Internet penetration can pose a problem, television is a particularly important medium for consumers to access music with 67 per cent of Indians and 35 per cent of Indonesians watching music videos on television almost every day," he said.

Thailand youngsters came close behind with 61 per cent saying they were passionate about music followed by South Korea with 45 per cent, Malaysia 43 per cent, and mainland China and Taiwan with 42 per cent.

However, only 38 per cent of Singaporean youngsters were passionate about music while Hong Kong finished bottom with a score of just 27 per cent. Young people in both territories appeared to prefer studying or working to listening to music.

Nearly 4,000 people aged 15 to 34 were interviewed for the MTV survey and those who scored their passion for music at seven out of 10 or above were classified as passionate.

The survey also found that, across the region, 56 per cent of consumers had played music on a computer in the past month while 53 per cent had played music on an MP3 player in the past month.