Apple expands iTunes

Apple today launched four new in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland featuring songs from all four major music companies and over 1,000 independent record labels. The four new stores offer the same features, pricing and seamless integration with iPod. Apple says it has extended the iTunes Music Store to reach more than 70 percent of the global music market with stores in 19 countries and more than 400 million songs purchased and downloaded worldwide.

"The iTunes Music Store has revolutionized the way we discover and enjoy music, and is now selling more than half a billion songs per year," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of Applications. "With iTunes Music Stores now in 19 countries, music fans around the world can enjoy the number one online music service in the world."

In conjunction with the iTunes Music Store launch in Switzerland, Apple and UBS today announced a promotion to give every Swiss citizen a free song on the iTunes Music Store as part of their new "UBS Generation" and "UBS Campus" packages. UBS is offering song cards for music downloads in all of their branches, which can be used instead of a credit card to purchase tracks from the iTunes Music Store.

Apple says the iTunes Music Store offers the largest online catalog of music in the world, with over 1.5 million songs in the US and catalogs around the world averaging over one million songs each. Exclusive music featured today on iTunes Music Stores includes tracks from Lucinda Williams and Van Morrison, as well as the complete catalogs of Bananarama and Rammstein. The new European stores are launching with exclusives from Kent, Stereophonics and The Cardigans. In addition, the iTunes Music Stores today added downloadable music videos to play on your Mac or PC with the purchase of albums or tracks from Dave Matthews Band, Gorillaz, Morcheeba and The Shins.

by MacNN Staff