Japan music competitor concedes to Apple

The overwhelming success of Apple's iTunes Music Store in Japan today marked the company's first victim in the PC music download market. Oricon, a publishing company of music hit charts, has withdrawn from Japan's MC music download market as a result of iTunes and the iPod, saying it will instead post links from its website to online music stores while concentrating on music downloads for mobile phones. "The iPod has outrun us all," said Oricon spokesman Teruaki Hidaka. "If iPod users could download music from our site, we may have waited to see if the tide turns from mobile phones to online downloads." Oricon's online store has lost nearly $214,000 each month since its launch in March of 2005, according to a report from News.com, and raising its monthly download volume of 90,000 tracks while earning a profit is impossible in the near future, according to Hidaka.

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ClevelandAdv

Record companies

11/01, 12:10pm, EST

The greedy record companies are a major reason that iTunes is #1. Since they demand 94% of the profits no one can make money with music downloads. Apple makes money on iPods, so they can offer iTunes songs at a reasonable price.

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lamewing

Exactly...

11/06, 3:06pm, EST

And this is the reason Apple won't open up Fair Play to the competition. If it did then Apple wouldn't have a captive audience for their music hardware.

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