iTunes Music Store Adds Nine EU Countries (UPDATED)
TMO Reports - iTunes Music Store Adds Nine EU Countries (UPDATED)
by , 12:40 PM EDT, October 26th, 2004
Nine European Union countries now have access to buy and download music from Apple's iTunes Music Store, Apple announced Tuesday. iTunes users in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain can now buy digital cuts for €0.99 per song.
The nine EU countries join iTMS users in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany.
“We’re excited to bring the iTunes Music Store to even more music fans across Europe, and with this expansion we now reach customers in almost 70 percent of the global music market,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s Vice President of Applications.
The company also said it will launch the iTMS in Canada in November.
Apple announced August 10 that the iTMS now had over one million songs available for download in the US and music from all five major record labels and over 600 leading independent labels from around the world. The company has refused to say exactly how many downloads are available in the 12 other markets.
When Apple launched the ITMS in Europe back in June, 800,000 songs were purchased in the first week, the company said, with more than 450,000 sold in the UK alone.
| iTunes Music Store Key Dates | |
|---|---|
| April 28, 2003 | Apple Launches iTunes Music Store |
| May 6, 2003 | One million songs sold on iTMS |
| May 14, 2003 | Two million songs sold on iTMS |
| June 23, 2003 | Five million songs sold on iTMS |
| September 8, 2003 | Ten million songs sold on iTMS |
| October 16, 2003 | Apple & Pepsi launch giveaway of 100 million free songs |
| October 20, 2003 | One million copies of iTunes for Windows downloaded in less than four days |
| November 6, 2003 | 1.5 million songs sold on iTMS in one week |
| December 15, 2003 | 25 million songs sold on iTMS |
| March 15, 2004 | 50 million songs sold on iTMS |
| April 28, 2004 | Over 70 million songs sold on iTMS |
| May 5, 2004 | 3.3 million songs sold on iTMS in one week |
| June 15, 2004 | Apple launches iTMS in UK, France & Germany |
| June 23, 2004 | iTMS in Europe sells 800,000 songs in first week |
| July 12, 2004 | 100 million songs sold on iTMS |
| August 10, 2004 | iTMS catalog tops one million songs |
| October 14, 2004 | 150 million songs sold on iTMS |
| October 26, 2004 | Apple launches iTMS in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain |
Observer Comments
Hello,
I'm very surprised and disappointed that their was no announcement of an Irish Music Store today, every other country in the old Europe (as Rumsfeld
calls it) now have access to the store, except Ireland. Why?
Considering that Irish consumers spent between Â110 and Â130 million Euro on music albums and singles in 2003 alone, for a population of 4 million people that's a lot of revenue that Apple could tap into.
Also U2 were co-hosting the event I would have imagined that an Irish store would be launched too. Especially since Apple's European Manufacturing and Distribution Centre is based here in County Cork.
Well who only knows when Apple will get around to establishing an Irish, Japanese or Australian store, among many other countries that are still lacking a music store. Hopefully it will be sooner than later.
On the plus side the new iPod Photo looks very cool.
Tue Oct 26, 2004 3:29 pm Subject: EU iTMS... Ireland not part of EU according to Apple
I'll believe it when I see it but I was listening to Newstalk 106 ( a Dublin talk radio station) the other day and the guest (whose title I missed) was talking about how the industry is going after people who file share, and during the course of the discussion mentioned that he was happy to say that ITunes was coming to Ireland at the end of the month. I thought it was nice of him to make the announcement for Apple like that
Strictly hearsay at this point.
Meanwhile, I've been using my Paris bank account to buy from the French store ![]()
Tue Oct 26, 2004 7:54 pm Subject:
Once again, Apple has left out one of the largest music buying markets (per capita) in the world - Australia (and New Zealand, for that matter).
You would think that Australia's 20 million odd population would contribute to Apple's profits in some way?? Obviously we are too small for them to even consider worthy of iTMS.
Get your act together Apple. Show us Australians and Kiwis that you are actually interested....
Tue Oct 26, 2004 9:03 pm Subject: I don’t understand some people …
Tue Oct 26, 2004 10:55 pm Subject:
Wed Oct 27, 2004 4:40 am Subject: Re: EU iTMS... Ireland not part of EU according to Apple
QuoteAnonymous wrote:
iTMS for Luxembourg which has a Population of 462,690
Yet there no iTMS in Ireland??? which has a Population of 4,002,558
Ireland has more Mac/Pc Users them Luxembourg has people...
let's hope they hurry up with a Irish version of iTMS…
I suspect that Luxembourg's music distribution rights are the same as Belgium's, so adding a Luxembourg store was peanuts, even if it only meant adding less than half a million customers.
Seems like the Japanese iTMS will never open.
Even if Apple did, it would mean no CD burning, and the ability to listen only on one computer and iPod...
Reason: the Japanese record/media companies are extremely strict about copying things. I've heard that even free over-the-air television broadcasts have Copy Protection in them. Japan is a screwed country.
If you look at any of the european urls for the itunes download (say, http://www.apple.com/ie/itunes/download/), and look at the botton left of the page, you'll see the following: "Purchases from the iTunes Music Store are available only in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, <b>Ireland</b>, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK and the United States."
It's the same in every other european site but not on the US one.
Looks like they intended for Ireland to be included and there's some legal snafu that's holding it up - probably cos the music industry here doesn't want the 99c per song prices to completely undercut the wonderfully high prices they charge CDs for here...
Fingers crossed they'll solve it sooner than later...
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