Apple today unveiled its iTunes music store to the UK, France and Germany, with a broader pan-European rollout of the service planned for October. Songs on the service will cost just €0.99 and £0.79 sterling per track.
The iTunes Music Store in the UK, France and Germany will feature over 700,000 songs from all five major music companies and dozens of independent record labels.
Offering the same personal use rights as the US iTunes Music Store, users who buy songs from the service have the ability to play songs on up to five personal computers, burn songs onto CDs an unlimited number of times, burn the same playlist up to seven times and listen to their music on an unlimited number of iPod music devices.
In recent months the iTunes music service surpassed the 50m download market. According to figures from Apple, iTunes users are now downloading 2.5m songs per week, which is equivalent to an annual run rate of 130m songs per year.
An ebullient Apple CEO Steve Jobs commented: “The number one online music store in the world has finally come to the UK, France and Germany.
“With a huge catalogue of over 700,000 songs, breakthrough prices of just €0.99 and £0.79 sterling per song and seamless integration with Apple’s wildly popular iPod, we think this is the digital music store that Europe has been waiting for.”
By John Kennedy
