iTunes music store arrives in Europe
Since opening in the US, the iTunes music store has revolutionised the way digital music is sold on the Internet.
After persuading the big record companies and a number of independent ones to climb onboard the iTunes music store has proved to be the number one winner so far among consumers. So much so that HP, the second largest PC supplier has decided to bundle iTunes with it’s Windows based machines and will shortly be offering a blue HP edition of Apple’s popular music player iPod.
Now after some delay, the iTunes music store has made it’s way out of the US and into the rest of the world with the opening of the European version. At this time the service only offers availability to customers in France, Germany and the UK, however Apple hope to add additional countries as and when deals can be sorted with record companies in other states.
Apple claim that 700,000 songs are available to download from their new Euro store, however it isn’t very clear whether this figure is a total for all the songs available in French, German and English or 700,000 per shop as each has it’s own content.
Prices for songs are more expensive than their American equivalents. Songs in the UK will cost £0.79 and whole albums at £7.99. In the Euro zone, Apple are charging €0.99 for each song and €9.99 for the album. Compared with the US prices of $0.99 and $9.99.
With some Internet CD retailers selling albums at lower prices, one has to question how many people will buy songs from the store, however if the success in the US is anything to go by, probably many. If you need the odd song for a home video being edited or one that has been going around in your head for a while, then services like this are a saviour. Online music sales are obviously now big business and many consumers with the iPod and other players will look to these types of shops from now on. Of course the iTunes store is only compatible with the iPods from Apple and HP but this type of business is still in its early days and with so many MP3 and MPEG4 players out there now, who can tell.
