SALES of guitars in the UK have risen by 18 per cent over the past year to £120 million, as the popularity of rock bands such as Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys persuades the nation to get strumming.

The number of guitars sold has more than doubled since 1999 as City bankers hunting trophy guitars and young would-be rock stars flock to guitar shops such as those in London’s Denmark Street.

Guitar is now the most popular instrument being played by children in schools, rather than the more traditional orchestral instruments favoured ten or 20 years ago.

The market is being driven partly by falling prices, with the cheapest acoustic instrument now well within a birthday present budget at £30.

Electric guitars have seen a 25 per cent drop in price over the past two years so that a package including an amplifier can be bought for less than £200 and a basic guitar for £50.

Paul Waller, the manager of Hanks, an acoustic guitar specialist, said: “The Chinese are making a lot of stuff, but they’re making it well. That’s made some of the higher-end North American manufacturers take note and compete better.”

Mr Waller said the shop's turnover was about £1.4 million last year and the business was growing by 10 per cent each year. With more products around and more guitars being made in China, there is more choice for customers, Mr Waller said, while the internet provides more information on the instrument.

Paul McManus, chief executive of the Music Industries Association, says that the rise in guitar sales to nearly a million last year backdates to the early 1990s.

He said: “It started with bands like Oasis, which started a return to guitar bands, and that has continued year on year up to the Arctic Monkeys.”

Up to 70 per cent of customers at Rockers, a store in Denmark Street that is renowned for selling heavy-metal guitars, are in their mid teens to late twenties, says Scott Avery, its manager.

“We get a lot of young people, mostly male,” he said. “It’s the influence of bands or being in their own bands. People are fed up with Pop Idol and X Factor and all that nonsense. People are more interested in listening to real music and playing in a band and doing it for themselves.”

However, the market is also being driven by baby-boomers trying to recapture their youth.

Mr McManus said: “Over a third of the population are now over 50 and we aren’t going quietly. A whole generation is returning to the obsessions of their youth, whether it is music or getting a Harley-Davidson.”

In Regent Sounds in Denmark Street, customers come to marvel at, sample and buy Fender guitars ranging from £359 to £4,000. They tend to be popular with City bankers with more money than talent, said Clement Coulom, the manager. “They want to spend a lot of money just to have a cool guitar even though they can’t play. Only a third of our customers are good guitar players. There’s a bit of talent involved. Not everyone’s got it. I can testify.”

Guitars would never go out of fashion, Mr Coulom said. “It’s exactly like denim or black,” he said.

Highly strung

Electric guitar players in business:

• Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft
  
  
• Philip Williamson, chief executive of Nationwide Building Society
  
  
• Ron Sandler, former chief executive of Lloyd’s of London, and author of the Sandler report on retail savings
  
  
• Brian Souter, chief executive of Stagecoach
  
  
• Sir Chris Evans, founder of Chiroscience and Merlin Biosciences
  
  
• Numis equities analysts Mark Hughes and Andrew Saunders play guitar in their band The Trotts
  
  
• The Bridgewell bankers Howard Seymour, Mark Gibbon and Andrew Walsh play guitar for the broker’s band Day Job

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