digital music/video
10/03/2006, 11:40am, EDT
Tuesday, October 3rd
Napster Japan takes on iTunes
Napster today announced it has launched in Japan, which will directly compete against Apple's iTunes Music Store and music-enabled cellular phones. Napster Japan, a joint venture between America's Napster and Tower Records Japan, is set to introduce a service that allows members to download any number of songs from its 1.5 million song collection for $16.80/month, according to Reuters. Napster Japan will also allow users to transfer that music onto compatible music players, and allows consumers to purchase songs without a monthly subscription. "It would have been very difficult for us to enter this market without a local partner," said Napster President Brad Duea. "Japan is a very unique market." Napster Japan's music offering currently consists of roughly 90 percent non-Japanese tracks, but the company hopes to expand the number of local songs available. The new service hopes to lure 1 million subscribers over a three year period with 1 million individual downloads per month by March of 2007.
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Napster as 'competition' for Apple is a kinda very funny proposition, though.
"The new service hopes to lure 1 million subscribers over a three year period with 1 million individual downloads per month by March of 2007."
That'd be quite a trick, and kudos to whoever sweet talked Tower Records into actually believing such numbers to be achievable - considering that Napster in the US barely has a tiny fraction of that number of subscribers and downloads. Even with a diffferent management team, which I would hope Napster Japan has, this will be a challenge for them to achieve, especially considering they are up again 'iPodu'.
Currently, Napster barely holds on to 512,000 subscribers, with countinuing losses year after year.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6101620.html
Isn't that the record shop that just went bankrupt? ;-)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/02/09/entertainment/main599008.shtml
(I know Tower Japan is now a completely different company, but I just had to say it)
Little school girl "taking on" Evander Holyfield...
Let's see:
iPod & iTunes #1 in Japan with 60% marketshare: http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/11/16/ipod.is.no..1.in.japan/
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/nov/16japan.html
This was a year ago. I would think it hasn't lost any marketshare in that time, but gained it.
I guess it has:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/aug/09itms.html
iPod may have 60% of the MP3 player market, but most people see are listening to their phones, not an MP3 player. It's a different market.
It will be interesting if Apple releases a phone for Japan. Phone designs here are considerably different from the US/Europe, with few that I have seen having the "RAZR aesthetic". An iPod phone may be a big hit.