About 500,000 individual tracks and 50,000 full album downloads were recorded during the three month period by Charttrack, a UK-based company which compiles information on music sales for the Irish Recorded Music Association (Irma).

The figures are the first available on the legal download market in Ireland since Charttrack began monitoring internet and mobile music sales in July. Sales of legal music downloads are almost at the same level as sales of CD singles. Downloads now account for 47% of the singles market in Ireland and CDs for 50%.

The top digital music retailers during the three month period were Vodafone, Apple's iTunes, Eircom Music and Sony Connect.

Charttrack does not break out individual market share figures for each distributor and the numbers are closely guarded in the industry. iTunes, thought to be the largest retailer of digital downloads over the internet in Ireland, does not release market share "gures for its Irish business and neither does Sony.

A spokeswoman for Vodafone Ireland, however, said the mobile network sold 36% of all singles downloaded between July and September. "We actually sold 45% of the top 40 downloads, " she said.